Measurements of air-sea gas exchange at high wind speeds in the Southern Ocean: Implications for global parameterizations

The SOLAS Air-Sea Gas Exchange (SAGE) Experiment was conducted in the western Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean. During SAGE, gas transfer velocities were determined using the He-3/SF6 dual gas tracer technique, and results were obtained at higher wind speeds (16.0 m s(-1)) than in previous open ocean dual tracer experiments. The results clearly reveal a quadratic relationship between wind speed and gas transfer velocity rather than a recently proposed cubic relationship. A new parameterization between wind speed and gas transfer velocity is proposed, which is consistent with previous He-3/SF6 dual tracer results from the coastal and open ocean obtained at lower wind speeds. This suggests that factors controlling air-sea gas exchange in this region are similar to those in other parts of the world ocean, and that the parameterization presented here should be applicable to the global ocean.