OCE 96-33423 Jessup The project will determine the role of microscale wave breaking as a forcing mechanism in air-sea gas transfer. The breaking of very short surface gravity waves without air entrainment, known as microscale breaking, disrupts the diffusive sublayer which governs the flux of gas across the air-sea interface. Thus, microscale breaking has been proposed as a dominant mechanism for gas transfer. This proposal will establish a new approach for the prediction of air-sea gas transfer velocity based on quantitative measures of microscale breaking derived from infrared (IR) imaging techniques in the laboratory.
