Oceanflux

The Oceanflux Greenhouse Gases project is a two year project funded by the European Space Agency, the objective is to improve the quantification of air-sea exchanges of greenhouse gases.

  The air-sea exchanges of greenhouse gases are of prime importance in the climate system. There are large uncertainties in the estimates of fluxes, even for CO₂ which is the most studied, much of these uncertainties arises from the uncertainty in transfer velocities.

The work is to develop and validate new and innovative products combining field data, satellite observation, and models. The main scientific challenges concern the estimate of the gas transfer velocity parameter (derivation, uncertainties, sensitivity) and the quantification of the impact of biological slicks, rainfall, sea surface temperature and salinity variability on the air-sea CO₂ flux.

The project includes the participation of a User Group to provide feedback on the project. This work is linked and communicated to the international Surface Ocean and Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) community and IMBER (both with the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme IGBP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP).

The project is being lead by Dr David Woolf (NHC).