Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BOOGIE (Breathing Oceans: understanding the organic skin that modulates the exchange of greenhouse gases between the atmosphere and the ocean)
Reporting period: 2022-08-01 to 2024-01-31
In our warming world the oceans are a major regulator of heat, and a global reservoir of greenhouse gases. However, quantifying the exchange of gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) between the ocean and atmosphere is a major challenge due to a variety of physical, chemical, and biotic influences. The role of organic substances in the ocean skin layer, known as surfactants, have been shown to reduce gas exchanges by up to 50%. Therefore, understanding how the ocean’s organic skin layer modulates gas exchange is critical to reliably estimate oceanic sinks and sources of key greenhouse gases both now and in the future.
Our oceans globally are estimated to account for 20–40% of the post-industrial sink for anthropogenic CO2. However, there are regional differences in the marine environment that vary the rate of gas exchanges. Understanding these key drivers offers the potential to better quantify and manage these systems. For example, it has been proposed that enhanced marine carbon dioxide removal technologies may offer one solution to rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere caused by anthropogenic activities. However, these solutions will be implemented at a local and regional scale, so understanding the response of biologically derived surfactants in this process will be fundamental to their success.
The Breathing Oceans (BOOGIE) project investigates how the ocean's organic skin layer modulates gas exchange and examines its importance for quantifying oceanic sinks and sources of greenhouse gases. Our objective is to better understand the role of surfactants from land to the ocean. Surfactants span across traditional operational definitions and are derived from multiple sources undergoing biotic and abiotic transformations during their transport. BOOGIE focuses on a land-ocean transect from Guyana, South America toward the African continent and investigates how the diversity of surfactants impact air-water gas exchange. Ultimately this work will improve our ability to identify and predict changes in how our Oceans store greenhouse gasses.
Our oceans globally are estimated to account for 20–40% of the post-industrial sink for anthropogenic CO2. However, there are regional differences in the marine environment that vary the rate of gas exchanges. Understanding these key drivers offers the potential to better quantify and manage these systems. For example, it has been proposed that enhanced marine carbon dioxide removal technologies may offer one solution to rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere caused by anthropogenic activities. However, these solutions will be implemented at a local and regional scale, so understanding the response of biologically derived surfactants in this process will be fundamental to their success.
The Breathing Oceans (BOOGIE) project investigates how the ocean's organic skin layer modulates gas exchange and examines its importance for quantifying oceanic sinks and sources of greenhouse gases. Our objective is to better understand the role of surfactants from land to the ocean. Surfactants span across traditional operational definitions and are derived from multiple sources undergoing biotic and abiotic transformations during their transport. BOOGIE focuses on a land-ocean transect from Guyana, South America toward the African continent and investigates how the diversity of surfactants impact air-water gas exchange. Ultimately this work will improve our ability to identify and predict changes in how our Oceans store greenhouse gasses.
The BOOGIE project began in February 2021. The first challenge was to build a team with expertise in geochemistry, microbiology, earth system modelling, and engineering. The second step was to design, build and install new analytical technologies to be able to measure the key parameters that would help further our understanding of surfactants in the ocean skin layer and assess their impact on gas exchanges. Working with experts from industry and academia the Carbon Water Dynamics team have enhanced their capability to measure a variety of organic substances in water, investigate their origin, and assess their impact on gas exchange.
In collaboration with partners in Germany, Guyana, Cape Verde, and the UK, BOOGIE has sampled waters from the Essequibo River and the Atlantic Ocean. A further milestone has been to develop the first hydrological model of the Essequibo River, Guyana to improve our ability to quantify river discharges in the region and assess the potential impacts of land use and climate change.
In collaboration with partners in Germany, Guyana, Cape Verde, and the UK, BOOGIE has sampled waters from the Essequibo River and the Atlantic Ocean. A further milestone has been to develop the first hydrological model of the Essequibo River, Guyana to improve our ability to quantify river discharges in the region and assess the potential impacts of land use and climate change.
Central to this work is the application of new technologies using novel sensor platforms and advanced geochemical characterisation techniques. To this end the BOOGIE project is at the forefront of new in-situ and ex-situ systems to measure rates of CO2 gas exchange across the water-air interface. In combination with new analytical methods to measure the age (14C) and source (13C) of surfactants, BOOGIE has created a new ability to assess the relative reactivity of surfactants to changes in physical, biological, and chemical forces that impact the rate of gas exchanges between air and water. We anticipate that this project will continue to be able to provide more robust estimates of oceanic uptake of greenhouses gases at local, regional, and global scales.