Search Menu
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Search Scholarly Publications

Title: Multiple mechanisms generate a universal scaling with dissipation for the air-water gas transfer velocity

Journal Article · · Geophysical Research Letters
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]
  1. Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States). Nicholas School of the Environment; Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  2. Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
+ Show Author Affiliations

A large corpus of field and laboratory experiments support the finding that the water side transfer velocity kL of sparingly soluble gases near air-water interfaces scales as kL~(νε)1/4, where ν is the kinematic water viscosity and ε is the mean turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate. Originally predicted from surface renewal theory, this scaling appears to hold for marine and coastal systems and across many environmental conditions. It is shown that multiple approaches to representing the effects of turbulence on kL lead to this expression when the Kolmogorov microscale is assumed to be the most efficient transporting eddy near the interface. The approaches considered range from simplified surface renewal schemes with distinct models for renewal durations, scaling and dimensional considerations, and a new structure function approach derived using analogies between scalar and momentum transfer. The work offers a new perspective as to why the aforementioned 1/4 scaling is robust.

Research Organization:
Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0006967; SC0011461; NSF-EAR-1344703; NSF-DGE-1068871; NSF-AGS-1112938
OSTI ID:
1465345
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1402208
Journal Information:
Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 44, Issue 4; ISSN 0094-8276
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (33)

Mechanistic Analytical Models for Long‐Distance Seed Dispersal by Wind journal September 2005
Parameterization of the Cool Skin of the Ocean and of the Air-Ocean Gas Transfer on the Basis of Modeling Surface Renewal journal June 1994
Buoyancy flux, turbulence, and the gas transfer coefficient in a stratified lake: TURBULENCE AND GAS EVASION IN LAKES journal December 2010
An eddy cell model of mass transfer into the surface of a turbulent liquid journal July 1970
Air-Water gas Exchange journal January 1998
Conditional sampling, bursting, and the intermittent structure of sensible heat flux journal January 1994
Large CO 2 effluxes at night and during synoptic weather events significantly contribute to CO 2 emissions from a reservoir journal May 2016
Models of the scalar spectrum for turbulent advection journal October 1978
Environmental turbulent mixing controls on air-water gas exchange in marine and aquatic systems journal January 2007
A model for evaporation as a molecular diffusion process into a turbulent atmosphere journal October 1965
A surface renewal model to analyze infrared image sequences of the ocean surface for the study of air-sea heat and gas exchange: SURFACE RENEWAL TO ANALYZE IR IMAGES journal August 2004
On the Spectrum of Isotropic Temperature Fluctuations in an Isotropic Turbulence journal April 1951
The continuous phase heat and mass-transfer properties of dispersions journal December 1961
Transfer Across the Air-Sea Interface book June 2013
Local isotropy in turbulent boundary layers at high Reynolds number journal June 1994
A functional form for the energy spectrum parametrizing bottleneck and intermittency effects journal June 2008
On the coefficients of small eddy and surface divergence models for the air-water gas transfer velocity journal March 2015
Multiple approaches to estimating air-water gas exchange in small lakes: Gas exchange in lakes journal June 2010
Lake-size dependency of wind shear and convection as controls on gas exchange: LAKE-SIZE DEPENDENCY OF journal May 2012
Advances in Quantifying Air-Sea Gas Exchange and Environmental Forcing journal January 2009
The role of breaking wavelets in air-sea gas transfer journal January 1990
A comparative assessment of spectral closures as applied to passive scalar diffusion journal November 1982
Gas Exchange in Rivers and Estuaries: Choosing a Gas Transfer Velocity journal April 2001
S MALL -S CALE H YDRODYNAMICS IN L AKES journal January 2003
Oceanic convective mixing and the impact on air-sea gas transfer velocity: CONVECTIVE MIXING AND AIR-SEA EXCHANGE journal January 2011
Toward a Unified Scaling Relation for Interfacial Fluxes journal May 2006
Small-scale variation of convected quantities like temperature in turbulent fluid Part 1. General discussion and the case of small conductivity journal January 1959
Surface-renewal models in mass transfer journal December 1961
On the Statistical Theory of Isotropic Turbulence journal January 1938
Surface age of surface renewal in turbulent interfacial transport journal January 2009
A random eddy modification of the penetration theory journal March 1962
Significance of Liquid-Film Coefficients in Gas Absorption journal June 1951
The relationship between ocean surface turbulence and air-sea gas transfer velocity: An in-situ evaluation journal May 2016

Cited By (3)

Turbulence Scaling Comparisons in the Ocean Surface Boundary Layer journal March 2018
Gas Transfer by Breaking Waves journal October 2018
Gas exchange in streams and rivers journal October 2019

Similar Records

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
turbulence
air‐water exchange
gas transfer velocity
surface renewal
Kolmogorov scaling
surface divergence