We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Due to the photochemical production and atmospheric deposition of highly reactive species at the sea surface, the microlayer could well act as a highly efficient microreactor, effectively sequestering and transforming select materials brought to the interface from the atmosphere and oceans by physical processes. However, very little is known about the optical and photochemical properties of this regime. Based on the measured enrichments of light absorbing material in the microlayer and employing photochemical quantum yields obtained for bulk waters, photochemical production rates and fluxes are estimated for the microlayer. The microlayer fluxes are generally small with respect to atmospheric deposition and the water column fluxes. This result argues that the microlayer is unlikely to act as a ‘reaction barrier’ to the exchange of trace gases across the interface. However, the higher photochemical production rates at the surface should lead to the more rapid oxidative turnover of materials at the interface and potentially to reactions and processes not observed in bulk waters.
Introduction
The sea-surface microlayer acts as a dynamic interface mediating the exchange of matter, heat, momentum, and electromagnetic radiation between the earth's oceans and atmosphere. The accumulation of surface-active material within this thin oceanic layer – defined operationally as the top 0.03 to 500 μm depending on the sampling method employed (Liss, 1986; Hunter and Liss, 1981; Carlson, 1982b) –has been shown by workers over the last several decades to alter the physical and chemical properties of the interface.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.