A team of more than 30 U.S. scientists is heading for the Southern Ocean to study gases relative to climate change.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation, are sponsoring the six-week Southern Ocean Gas Exchange Experiment aboard the NOAA ship Ronald H. Brown.
Scientists from dozens of universities and research institutions plan to measure turbulence, waves, bubbles, temperature and ocean color, and investigate how these factors relate to the air-sea exchange of carbon dioxide and other climate-relevant gases, NASA said Thursday in a release.
Oceans absorb about 2 billion metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year, about 30 percent of the total annual global emissions of carbon dioxide. While scientists know higher wind speeds promote faster exchange of gases, there have been very few studies aimed at directly measuring these exchanges under real world conditions, the agency said.
