ICOS Science Conference, Session 10

1. Estimations of air-sea carbon flux based on in-situ CO₂
measurements at the Belgian Continental Shelf
Steven Pint, Gert Everaert , Thanos Gkritzalis , Hannelore Theetaert ,
Michiel Vandegehuchte
Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), Ostend, BE
Photo courtesy of ICOScapes, Konsta Punka

2. Location
51.58 oN, 2.99 oE
30 Nm from Zeebrugge

3. Location
Source: after Turrell et al. (1992)
0.06 Sv
Borges et al., 2009

4. Location
EMODNet Human Activities

5. Most studies: 1990 – 2010
Gypens et al. 2011
1995-2004

6. BE-FOS-Thornton Buoy
ICOS Class1 + LifeWatch
Ø 2.6m
H: 6 m
D: 25 m
Tide: ± 5 m
Gill Maximet 500
CO2-Pro Atm + SBE5 Pump
SBE37-SMP-ODO
(0.8 m depth)
Pump @ 0.8 m
CO2 @ 1.5 m

7. Setup
~ 250 m
http://thornton.lifewatch.be/view/view.shtml?id=32729&imagepat
h=%2Fmjpg%2Fvideo.mjpg&size=1

8. Data 2018

9. Atm Data
THRB
CBWTCN
ICOS Ocean
ICOS Atm
Non ICOS Atm

10. STILT

11. Air – Sea CO2 fluxes
𝐹 = 𝑎 ⋅ 𝐾 ⋅ ∆𝑝𝐶𝑂2
a : CO2 solubility
K : Wind parameterization (Nightingale et al., 2000)
∆𝑝𝐶𝑂2= (𝑝𝐶𝑂2,𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 − 𝑝𝐶𝑂2,𝑎𝑡𝑚 )
Weak sink

12. SA Analysis

13. Air – Sea CO2 Fluxes
variability
0.5
0.0
-0.5
-1.0

14. Future

15. Conclusions
- VLIZ ICOS infrastructure can provide reliable tools to estimate fluxes on local environment
and contribute to greater synthesis on regional fluxes (e.g. Kitidis et al., 2019)
- The 2018 local fluxes are within expected values
- Will be interesting to study the local variability of the fluxes and try to estimate local drivers
- xCO2 atm measurements very near the surface is promising, yet needs further development
- Annual exercise

16. Thank you