Current large uncertainties in the air-sea flux of CO 2 prevent us from verifying the partitioning of fossil fuel CO 2 between the ocean and the terrestrial biosphere. This limits our ability to realistically model future atmospheric CO 2 levels. By measuring the flux using direct flux measurements such as the relaxed eddy accumulation, eddy correlation and gradient methods we can establish robust relationships between environmental forcing and gas exchange on short time scales.
Techniques are now in hand to improve our estimates of air-sea fluxes.
The latter verification is essential to validate the relaxed eddy accumulation method for measurement of CO 2 fluxes over the ocean. A proposal to perform this work in the North Atlantic in June 1996 has been funded. Measuring Emissions from Soil and Water , edited by P.A. Matson, and R.C. Harriss, pp. 52-97, Blackwell Science, Cambridge, Mass, 1995. Wanninkhof, R. , Relationship between gas exchange and wind speed over the ocean., J. Geophys.