『Abstract
During the last decade the number of seawater dimethylsulfide
(DMS) concentration measurements has increased substantially.
The importance this gas, emitted from the ocean to the atmosphere,
may have in the cloud microphysics and hence in the Earth albedo
and radiation budget, makes it necessary to accurately reproduce
the global distribution. Recently, the monthly global DMS climatology
has been updated taking advantage of the threefold increased size
and better resolved distribution of the observations available
in the DMS database. Here, the emerging patterns found with the
previous versions of the database and climatology are explored
with the updated versions. The statistical relationships between
the seasonalities of DMS concentrations and other variables are
re-examined. The positive correlation previously found between
surface seawater DMS and the daily-averaged climatological solar
radiation dose in the upper mixed layer of the open ocean is confirmed
with both the updated DMS database and climatology. Re-examination
of the latitudinal match-mismatch between the seasonalities of
DMS and phytoplankton, represented by the chlorophyll a concentration,
reveals that they are highly positively correlated in latitudes
higher than 40゜, but anti-correlated in the 20゜-40゜ latitudinal
bands of both hemispheres. Overall, these global emerging patterns
provide key information to further understanding the factors that
control the emission of volatile sulfur from the ocean. The large
uncertainties associated with the methodologies used in global
computations, however, call for caution in using these emerging
patterns as predictive tools, and prompt to the design of time
series and process-oriented studies aimed at testing the validity
of the observed relationships.
Keywords: Updated DMS climatology; Solar radiation dose; Mixed
layer depth; Chlorophyll a concentration』
Introduction
Methods
Results and discussion
Global DMS distributions
DMS versus SRD
DMS versus Chla
Conclusions
Acknowledgments
References