Sea-spray Emissions - Absent Key-processes and Evidences for Responses to Changing Climate (SEAKER-CC)

We will introduce new ways to measure sea spray (SS) flux:1) ELPI+ in EC-fluxes, covering 0.006 to 10 μm Dp and previous gaps in the size distribution, more accurate than previous instruments.

We will use it for a much longer period than previous SS flux studies to get a wider range of the parameters that determine SS emissions.2) REA to measure salt & organic SS mass fluxes.

We will no more be blind to chemical composition of SS emissions.3) We will study the effect of sea i) temperature, ii) salinity & iii) surfactants. They influence SS through changes in water bubbles.

We suspect processes on milli-second scale, which will be studied with a high-speed camera that let us follow sequences from coalescence to bubble bursting.4) We will collect chemical SS size distributions to add to pre-existing data.

Combining data with improved process-understanding, we will improve SS source parameterization for climate models.EC & REA-fluxes will be done at stations in Barents Sea & Baltic Sea, in total for 2-3-years.

The chemical data limited to 2 summers.We will combine all data to test, modify, or replace existing SS source parametrizations, especially an organic SS source parameterization that works for oceans with both high & low primary production.

This work will be done in communication with climate model groups, with whom we have established collaboration since previous sea SS parameterizations. Promising source parameterizations will be tested in a GCM.