New approaches for air-sea fluxes in the Southern Ocean

Abstract

Air-sea exchanges in the Southern Ocean of momentum, heat, freshwater, carbon dioxide, and other gases are not well documented because fluxes are sparsely sampled (see Figure 1) and because high winds, high sea state, and lack of calibration for bulk formulas make them difficult to determine. New developments, both for in situ observing approaches and for data interpretation, offer a possibility for advancing understanding in ways that were not previously possible.