The International Symposium on Gas Transfer at Water Surfaces

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

The International Symposium on Gas Transfer at Water Surfaces has occurred roughly every five years since 1983 and is organized and hosted on a voluntary basis by members of the community. The Symposium objectives to understand, quantify, and parameterize the mixing and biogeochemical processes governing air-sea gas exchange are central to the investigation of ocean fluxes of greenhouse gases. Although the role of the global ocean as a major sink of anthropogenic carbon dioxide is well established, the impact of global warming on the mechanisms that drive air-sea gas exchange is a major source of uncertainty. Thus it is essential to improve our understanding of the physical and biogeochemical mechanisms responsible for carbon uptake and their sensitivity to changing environmental conditions. The opportunity for the community to exchange recent research results will advance our knowledge of air-water gas exchange. This award provides travel support for students, postdoctoral fellows, and early career scientists to attend the 7th International Symposium on Gas Transfer at Water Surfaces in Seattle, WA on 18-21 May 2015. Attendance by students, postdocs, and early career scientists will provide a valuable opportunity to meet and interact with a wide range of leading scientists in the gas transfer community. The community itself will also benefit by the opportunity to engage and entrain the next generation of scientists. An on-line open access service that specializes in conference proceedings will be used to provide a wide and timely distribution of the reported research. The Symposium periodically brings together the international scientific and engineering community investigating the mechanisms, parameterizations, and implications of gas transfer at water surfaces. The focus is on the physical and biogeochemical processes that govern gas flux, which include turbulence due to wind, wave breaking, and currents and the effect of natural and anthropogenic surfactants. These are the same mechanisms that govern the flux of heat and momentum and thus the conference is attended by many in the community studying a wide range of air- and water-side mixing processes that occur at or near the ocean surface. The topics covered by the Symposium encompass field, laboratory, and modeling investigations of the physics governing air-water transfer, development and testing of parameterizations for use in global climate models, and mapping and assessment of the global distribution of air-sea Carbon Dioxide fluxes. In addition to these core topics, the 2015 Symposium will include the topics of ocean acidification due to increased Carbon Dioxide uptake and the impact of reducing sea-ice extent on gas transfer in Polar Regions. Presentations by researchers from the geosciences (oceanography, atmospheric sciences, hydrology), engineering disciplines (civil, mechanical, chemical, environmental), and the basic sciences related to all aspects of transport to, and transfer across, gas-water boundaries will be included.