An updated climatology of surface dimethlysulfide concentrations and emission fluxes in the global ocean

Abstract

[1] The potentially significant role of the biogenic trace gas dimethylsulfide (DMS) in determining the Earth's radiation budget makes it necessary to accurately reproduce seawater DMS distribution and quantify its global flux across the sea/air interface. Following a threefold increase of data (from 15,000 to over 47,000) in the global surface ocean DMS database over the last decade, new global monthly climatologies of surface ocean DMS concentration and sea-to-air emission flux are presented as updates of those constructed 10 years ago. Interpolation/extrapolation techniques were applied to project the discrete concentration data onto a first guess field based on Longhurst's biogeographic provinces. Further objective analysis allowed us to obtain the final monthly maps. The new climatology projects DMS concentrations typically in the range of 1-7 nM, with higher levels occurring in the high latitudes, and with a general trend toward increasing concentration in summer. The increased size and distribution of the observations in the DMS database have produced in the new climatology substantially lower DMS concentrations in the polar latitudes and generally higher DMS concentrations in regions that were severely undersampled 10 years ago, such as the southern Indian Ocean. Using the new DMS concentration climatology in conjunction with state-of-the-art parameterizations for the sea/air gas transfer velocity and climatological wind fields, we estimate that 28.1 (17.6-34.4) Tg of sulfur are transferred from the oceans into the atmosphere annually in the form of DMS. This represents a global emission increase of 17% with respect to the equivalent calculation using the previous climatology. This new DMS climatology represents a valuable tool for atmospheric chemistry, climate, and Earth System models.Citation: Lana, A., et al. (2011), An updated climatology of surface dimethlysulfide concentrations and emission fluxes in the global ocean, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 25, GB1004,

Annual cycle of dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) and dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) related to phytoplankton succession in the Southern North Sea

“…The maximum DMS concentrations we report (255 nmol L − 1 ) were similar to maximum values reported by other studies in coastal near-shore areas of the North Sea (Kwint and Kramer, 1996;van Duyl et al, 1998) and were higher than those reported in the deeper and seasonally stratified northern North Sea, with maximum DMS values of 5 nmol L − 1 reported during a bloom of coccolithophores (Archer et al, 2002). Overall, the DMS maximum concentrations in the near-shore coastal areas of the North Sea are one to two orders of magnitude higher than the seasonal maxima typical of open oceanic waters, as compiled and reviewed by Lana et al (2011).…”

Methane production induced by dimethylsulfide in surface water of an upwelling ecosystem

“…Labeled DMS ( 13 C-DMS) was added to the bags at a final concentration of 6 nmol L À1 in order to directly assess the origin of CH 4 production from organic labeled compounds. The 13 C-DMS tracer additions was estimated to be close to 30-100% of ambient concentrations in surface waters which could fluctuated from <5 to 15 nmol L À1 in upwelling areas according to Andreae (1985) and Lana et al (2011). In this study, DMS levels in seawater were not measured.…”

Earth System Chemistry integrated Modelling (ESCiMo) with the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) version 2.51

“…Ocean salinity is taken from the monthly climatology of the World Ocean Atlas 2001 . Oceanic concentrations of DMS are a monthly climatology from Lana et al (2011). Isoprene concentrations in the ocean are calculated using the parameterization of Broadgate et al (1997), relating isoprene and chlorophyll concentrations, here with chlorophyll prescribed as a monthly climatology from the World Ocean Atlas 2001 .…”