SO-SAFE : Southern Ocean Sea-spray Aerosol Flux Experiment

People: Ian Brooks and Sarah Norris

Description

Sea spray over the oceans is the second largest source of aerosol mass injected into the atmosphere. Sea-salt aerosol plays an important role in global climate – acting as the major source of scattering for solar radiation over the remote oceans, and to modify the microphysical properties of clouds. The generation of aerosol from sea-spray is roughly proportional the cube of the wind speed, but there remains an uncertainty of up to an order of magnitude in the exact source function, particularly at high wind speeds where measurements are both sparse and difficult. As part of the US funded Southern Ocean Gas Exchange Experiment, we are installing a CLASP aerosol probe on the University of Miami’s Air-Sea Interaction Spar (ASIS) buoy for a field campaign in the Southern Ocean during March 2008. ASIS is also equipped with turbulence instrumentation, CO­2 and water vapour sensors, and capacitance wave wires. The measurements will allow us to study the production of aerosol as a function, not only of wind speed, but wave state. A second CLASP instrument will be installed with turbulence instrumentation run by Chris Fairall (NOAA) and Jim Edson (University of Connecticut) on the research NOAA ship RV Ron Brown.

Funded by: NERC

Start Date: January 2008
End Date: December 2009

Links
SO-GASEX