Seawater surface bursts

Spiel, D. E. (1997). More on the births of jet drops from bubbles bursting on seawater surfaces. /. Geophys. Res. 102,5815-5821. 

The results of correlation studies reported in Refs. 2, 4, and 7 indicated that the fractionation behavior of most fission products was remarkably similar for coral surface bursts, bursts on the surface of deep and shallow seawater, and bursts at altitudes sufficiently great to avoid entrainment of soil or water in the fireball and cloud. Furthermore, the correlations showed no clear-cut dependence on the explosive yield of the device. This report extends the treatment to a near-surface event on silicate soil. 

Bezdek HF, Carlucci AF (1974) Concentration and removal of liquid microlayers from a seawater surface by bursting bubbles. Limnol Oceanogr 19 126-132... 

The major ions are transported across the air-sea interface by the ejection of water droplets from the sea surfece. These droplets result from water turbulence at the sea surface that causes microscopic bubbling. Some of these bubbles burst, ejecting seawater into the atmosphere. Since not all of the salt ions are ejected to the same degree, bursting bubbles can alter the ion ratios in the remaining water. 

Sea-to-air fluxes of major ions are caused by bubble bursting and breaking waves at the sea surface. These processes eject sea-salts into the atmosphere, the majority of which immediately fall back into the sea. Some of these salts are, however, transported over long distances in the atmosphere and contribute to the salts in riverwater (see Section 5.3). These airborne sea-salts are believed to have the same relative ionic composition as seawater and their flux out of the oceans is estimated by measuring the atmospheric deposition rates on the continents. In terms of global budgets, airborne sea-salts are an important removal process only for Na+ and Cl" from seawater removal of other major ions by this route is trivial. 

The possibility that the depletion of chloride in the marine aerosol is due to fractionation during the formation of sea-salt particles by bursting bubbles can be discounted. Laboratory studies of Chesselet et al (1972b) and Wilkness and Bressan (1972) showed no deviation of the Cl /Na+ mass ratio from seawater in the bubble-produced sea-salt particles. It may be mentioned in passing that bromide in marine aerosols shows a deficit similar to chloride, whereas iodide is present in excess. The latter observation is attributed to both chemical enrichment at the sea s surface and scavenging of iodine from the gas phase. A portion of iodine is released from the ocean as methyl iodide, which in the atmosphere is subject to photodecomposition and thereby provides a source of scavengable iodine. The process has been reviewed by Duce and Hoffman (1976). In continental aerosols, chloride and bromide are partly remnants of sea salt, but there exists also a contribution from the gas phase. 

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