This Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER) project involves use of newly developed instrumentation to measure the flux of dimethylsulfide (DMS) from seawater to the atmosphere. Preliminary work off a pier are the first for DMS using the atmospheric profile in the lower boundary layer of the marine atmosphere. An at-sea test in July 1997 represents a unique and short-term opportunity to conduct measurements of gas flux on a cruise dedicated to that task. This project will allow the PI to transfer his technique for measuring DMS profiles to a remotely-operated catamaran, allowing him to relate DMS flux with concomitant investigations of surface chemistry and physics by other investigators on the cruise. The direct comparison of these independent methods of estimating flux represents a test of thin layer transfer models and may provide insight into more general questions of gas exchange.
