9410914 DeGrandpre Research will be undertaken in response to a one-time Program Announcement (NSF 93-101) for the Coastal Ocean Processes (CoOP) Coastal Air-Sea Chemical Fluxes pilot study. The NSF/CoOP Study will augment and collaborate with the ONR-sponsored Marine Boundary Layer (MBL) Advanced Research Initiative (ARI) project scheduled for 1995 off the coast of Monterey, California. The overall scientific project is interdisciplinary, with the NSF/CoOP efforts addressing chemical and biological parameters, while the ONR study focuses on physical oceanographic and meteorological parameters. This project focuses on concentrations of pCO2, O2 and noble gases in relation to the interdisciplinary framework of biological, chemical, physical, and meteorological experiments to be conducted by other scientists during the MBL ARI. Air-sea gas exchange mechanisms and upper ocean gas dynamics will be studied by measuring multiple gases (He, Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe) at different depths in the water column. This suite of noble gases will enable the investigators to discern air-sea gas exchange from other physical processes such as advection and heat exchange. Also, by making measurements at different depths, the effects of vertical mixing on surface concentrations can be directly estimated. Complementary meteorological, physical and chemical data to be taken during the MBL experiment will be used to ultimately determine the physical forcing and constraining mechanisms on air- sea chemical exchange in the coastal region.
