Journal
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 44, Issue 6, Pages 2852-2858Publisher
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1002/2017GL072988
Keywords
surfactant; AMT; air-sea exchange; surface microlayer; enrichment factor
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Funding
- UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) [NE/K00252X/1]
- NERC National Capability
- National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
- NERC [pml010007, NE/K002473/1, pml010002, NE/K00252X/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Natural Environment Research Council [pml010002, NE/K00252X/1, 1368558, pml010007, NE/K002473/1] Funding Source: researchfish
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We report the first measurements of surfactant activity (SA) in the sea surface microlayer (SML) and in subsurface waters (SSW) at the ocean basin scale, for two Atlantic Meridional Transect from cruises 50 degrees N to 50 degrees S during 2014 and 2015. Northern Hemisphere (NH) SA was significantly higher than Southern Hemisphere (SH) SA in the SML and in the SSW. SA enrichment factors (EF=SA(SML)/SA(SSW)) were also higher in the NH, for wind speeds up to similar to 13ms(-1), questioning a prior assertion that Atlantic Ocean wind speeds >12ms(-1) poleward of 30 degrees N and 30 degrees S would preclude high EFs and showing the SML to be self-sustaining with respect to SA. Our results imply that surfactants exert a control on air-sea CO2 exchange across the whole North Atlantic CO2 sink region and that the contribution made by high wind, high latitude oceans to air-sea gas exchange globally should be reexamined.
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