Spray-Mediated Air-Sea Gas Exchange of Carbon Dioxide in High Winds

Project Overview

This project seeks to improve process-based representations of sea spray mediated air-sea carbon dioxide (CO₂) exchange by combining advances in wave-breaking physics, sea spray generation, and carbonate chemistry.

The project has three primary objectives:

O1) Extend the Andreas Gas Exchange Spray (AGES) model, originally developed through NSF project #1630846 for non-reactive gases, to include the exchange of carbon dioxide (CO₂) through sea spray.

O2) Build on results from NSF projects #1924686 and #2121646 to incorporate a physics-based sea spray generation model into ongoing surface wave-breaking model developments.

O3) Incorporate the full carbonate chemistry system associated with CO₂ exchange, including carbonate and bicarbonate species, alkalinity, and pH evolution throughout the lifetime of sea spray droplets.

Funding: NSF OCE-2218781 (PI: Penny Vlahos, co-PI: Leonel Romero)

Period: 9/1/2022 - 8/31/2027

Publications

Software

  • lvhend. (2025). lvhend/spray-co2-flux-2025: spray-CO2-flux. Zenodo. DOI

Conference Presentations

  • Romero L., Hendrickson L., and Vlahos P. (2025, May). Spray Mediated CO₂ Gas Exchange (talk). WISE Meeting, Seattle, WA

  • Hendrickson L., Vlahos P., and Romero L. (2024, December). Carbonate System Changes Within an Evaporating Sea Spray Droplet (talk). EGU General Assembly, Vienna

  • Hendrickson L., Vlahos P., and Romero L. (2024, April). Quantifying Net CO2 Evasion from Sea Spray in a Simple Carbonate System (poster). AGU, Washington, DC

  • Hendrickson L., Vlahos P., and Romero L. (2024, February). Modeling CO2 emission from an evaporating sea spray droplet using CO2SYS (poster). Ocean Sciences Meeting, New Orleans, LA

Wave Breaking Spray Mediated Gas Transfer Theory Modeling Spume CO2 Current