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Air–Sea \(\mathrm{CO}_{2}\) Gas Transfer Velocity in a Shallow Estuary

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Abstract

The air–sea transfer velocity of \(\mathrm{CO}_{2}\, (k_{\mathrm{CO}_{2}})\) was investigated in a shallow estuary in March to July 2012, using eddy-covariance measurements of \(\mathrm{CO}_{2}\) fluxes and measured air–sea \(\mathrm{CO}_{2}\) partial-pressure differences. A data evaluation method that eliminates data by nine rejection criteria in order to heighten parametrization certainty is proposed. We tested the data evaluation method by comparing two datasets: one derived using quality criteria related solely to the eddy-covariance method, and the other derived using quality criteria based on both eddy-covariance and cospectral peak methods. The best parametrization of transfer velocity normalized to a Schmidt number of 600 \((k_{600})\) was determined to be: \(k_{600} = 0.3\,{U_{10}}^{2.5}\) where \(U_{10}\) is the wind speed in m \(\mathrm{s}^{-1}\) at 10 m; \(k_{600}\) is based on \(\mathrm{CO}_{2}\) fluxes calculated by the eddy-covariance method and including the cospectral peak method criteria. At low wind speeds, the transfer velocity in the shallow water estuary was lower than in other coastal waters, possibly a symptom of low tidal amplitude leading to low intensity water turbulence. High transfer velocities were recorded above wind speeds of 5 m \(\mathrm{s}^{-1}\), believed to be caused by early-breaking waves and the large fetch (6.5 km) of the estuary. These findings indicate that turbulence in both air and water influences the transfer velocity.

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Acknowledgments

This work was part of a Ph.D. project supported by ECOCLIM, funded by The Danish Council for Strategic Research. We sincerely thank Søren William Lund and Kaj Morten Hildan for technical help in relation to mounting and maintenance of the experimental set-up and Risø DTU for making wave data available. Furthermore, we would like to thank the ECOCLIM and DEFROST Journal Club, Christina Levisen, Sara Pryor and Robert Peel for valuable comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 , Roskilde, Denmark

    Eva Thorborg Mørk

  2. Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 , Roskilde, Denmark

    Lise Lotte Sørensen & Bjarne Jensen

  3. Department of Bioscience, Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University, C.F. Møllers Allé 8, 8000 , Aarhus C, Denmark

    Lise Lotte Sørensen & Mikael K. Sejr

  4. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Vejlsøvej 25, 8600 , Silkeborg, Denmark

    Mikael K. Sejr

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  1. Eva Thorborg Mørk
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Correspondence to Eva Thorborg Mørk.

Appendix

Appendix

In the Advanced Mode of EddyPro 4.0.0 the settings shown in Table 5 are chosen using the listed methods.

Table 5 The chosen processing options and methods used in the calculation of \(\mathrm{CO}_{2}\) fluxes using EddyPro, version 4.0.0
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Mørk, E.T., Sørensen, L.L., Jensen, B. et al. Air–Sea \(\mathrm{CO}_{2}\) Gas Transfer Velocity in a Shallow Estuary. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 151, 119–138 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-013-9869-z

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