The ocean covers 71% of the Earth's surface and represents a significant source of aerosols to our atmosphere. It produces over 50% of the oxygen we breathe and is often referred to as the “living ocean”.  When waves crash at the surface of the ocean, bubbles burst and eject biological species into the atmosphere including bacteria, viruses, lipids, proteins, and a vast array of other biological species. The production mechanisms leading to the generation of sea spray contain many interfaces which likely result in a high degree of selectivity in the actual biological components that are transferred into the atmosphere.  This presentation will describe efforts to better understand the link between the physical production mechanisms and the resulting size-resolved composition of sea spray investigated in a unique ocean-atmosphere wave flume. Implications for how the production mechanism impacts the chemical composition, surface properties, heterogeneous reactions, and ice nucleation processes of sea spray aerosols will be discussed.

Studies of the selective transfer of biological species from the ocean to the atmosphere

252nd National Meeting (2016)

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