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The influence of short‐term wind variability on air‐sea CO 2 exchange
Author(s) -
Bates Nicholas R.,
Merlivat Liliane
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2001gl012897
Subject(s) - environmental science , wind speed , flux (metallurgy) , atmosphere (unit) , buoy , sampling (signal processing) , atmospheric sciences , meteorology , term (time) , carbon dioxide , climatology , geography , geology , oceanography , chemistry , physics , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , detector , optics
Quantifying the regional and global exchange of CO 2 between the ocean and atmosphere requires knowledge of the factors that affect CO 2 gas transfer (e.g., wind speed) and the air‐sea difference in partial pressure of CO 2 ( p CO 2 ). A major uncertainty is the effect of short‐term variability on air‐sea CO 2 flux. Using high sampling frequency wind speed and p CO 2 data collected during deployments of the autonomous CARbon Interface OCean Atmosphere (CARIOCA) buoy, we compare CO 2 fluxes at different sampling frequency of wind speed (i.e., hourly versus daily averaged). Air‐sea CO 2 flux was up to three times greater if high frequency wind data was used rather than daily average values. This difference arises from the non‐linear relationship between wind speed and CO 2 gas transfer coefficient, and a better representation of wind distribution at a higher frequency (i.e., hourly) of sampling. This finding has significant implications for determining regional and global air‐sea CO 2 fluxes, and understanding of the global carbon cycle.