The main objective of this COST Action is to develop the tools for, and the production of, best estimates of global air-sea fluxes of compounds relevant to climate and air pollution, including, but not limited to CO2, DMS, halogenated hydrocarbons, nitrous oxide, trace metals and nutrients. The latter two are included as their flux to the ocean affects marine ecology and provides feedback to the production of trace gases. These estimates will be computed from a combination of available data and state-of-the-art model output. This COST Action will: – Compile existing data into a standards-based framework, in a format of use to climate modellers, interpolating sparse data and collapsing it to a ‘virtual year’. – Intercalibrate and compare different data sets and methods, and assess the errors within them. – Compare the data products to model output. Such a synthesis of data is critical for assessing the role of the oceans in regulating atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, stratospheric ozone-depleting compounds and oxides of nitrogen and sulphur which form acid deposition. It will allow a determination of the ocean’s influence on the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere, which regulates air quality and the lifetime of greenhouse gases. Secondary objectives are: – To implement the latest chemical and biological understanding of trace gas production into coupled models used for predicting regional and global climate. – To assess the role that the oceans play in regulating air quality and the atmosphere’s oxidation capacity. – To synthesise our knowledge of the likely changes in air-sea exchange under various global change scenarios. Such an initiative is timely because coupled GCMs (General Circulation Models) used to predict climate are now capable of incorporating biological feedbacks to global change. They are currently limited by a lack of data and understanding of how the chemical/ biological processes operate within our present climate and will operate in the future (Figure 3). Finally, this Action will – Develop fora for information dissemination, scientific synthesis and vigorous discussion.
