Evidence of Sea Spray Produced by Bursting Bubbles

Non-equilibrium molecular simulations of thin film rupture

The retraction of thin films, as described by the Taylor-Culick (TC) theory, is subject to widespread debate, particularly for films at the nanoscale. We use non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations to explore the validity of the assumptions used in continuum models by tracking the evolution of holes in a film. By deriving a new mathematical form for the surface shape and considering a locally varying surface tension at the front of the retracting film, we reconcile the original theory with our simulation to recover a corrected TC speed valid at the nanoscale.

Diel cycle of sea spray aerosol concentration

Sea spray aerosol (SSA) formation have a major role in the climate system, but measurements at a global-scale of this micro-scale process are highly challenging. We measured high-resolution temporal patterns of SSA number concentration over the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Pacific Ocean covering over 42,000 km. We discovered a ubiquitous 24-hour rhythm to the SSA number concentration, with concentrations increasing after sunrise, remaining higher during the day, and returning to predawn values after sunset. The presence of dominating continental aerosol transport can mask the SSA cycle. We did not find significant links between the diel cycle of SSA number concentration and diel variations of surface winds, atmospheric physical properties, radiation, pollution, nor oceanic physical properties. However, the daily mean sea surface temperature positively correlated with the magnitude of the day-to-nighttime increase in SSA concentration. Parallel diel patterns in particle sizes were also detected in near-surface waters attributed to variations in the size of particles smaller than ~1 µm. These variations may point to microbial day-to-night modulation of bubble-bursting dynamics as a possible cause of the SSA cycle.

Sea spray aerosol (SSA) are an important way through which oceans can influence the atmosphere’s radiative properties. Here, the authors present measurements taken over a 42,000 km ship cruise in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and show that SSA number concentrations vary over a 24-hour cycle, possibly linked to surface water bubble-bursting dynamics.

The Atmosphere

The atmosphere is composed of nitrogen, oxygen and argon, a variety of trace gases, and particles or aerosols from a variety of sources. Reactive, trace gases have short mean residence time in the atmosphere and large spatial and temporal variations in concentration. Many trace gases are removed by reaction with hydroxyl radical and deposition in rainfall or dryfall at the Earth's surface. The upper atmosphere, the stratosphere, contains ozone that screens ultraviolet light from the Earth's surface. Chlorofluorocarbons released by humans lead to the loss of stratospheric ozone, which might eventually render the Earth's land surface uninhabitable. Changes in the composition of the atmosphere, especially rising concentrations of CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O, will lead to climatic changes over much of the Earth's surface.

Investigation of the mechanisms of sea spray generation induced by wind-wave interaction in laboratory conditions

The paper presents the results of investigations of the mechanisms of spray of droplets generation within wind wave interaction obtained under laboratory conditions on the High-speed Wind-Wave Flume of the Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For the research, a multi-angle high-speed video system used together shadow method, including underwater illumination. The results allowed for the classification of mechanismsleading to the formation of droplets. Three main types of phenomena responsible for the generation of the spume droplets near the wave crest were specified: breakage of liquid ligaments, bursting of large submerged bubbles, and bag breakup. The last and less known mechanism claims to be dominant for high wind speeds and it was described in detail.

Wind-driven spume droplet production and the transport of Pseudomonas syringae from aquatic environments

Natural aquatic environments such as oceans, lakes, and rivers are home to a tremendous diversity of microorganisms. Some may cross the air-water interface within droplets and become airborne, with the potential to impact the Earth’s radiation budget, precipitation processes, and spread of disease. Larger droplets are likely to return to the water or adjacent land, but smaller droplets may be suspended in the atmosphere for transport over long distances. Here, we report on a series of controlled laboratory experiments to quantify wind-driven droplet production from a freshwater source for low wind speeds. The rate of droplet production increased quadratically with wind speed above a critical value (10-m equivalent 5.7 m/s) where droplet production initiated. Droplet diameter and ejection speeds were fit by a gamma distribution. The droplet mass flux and momentum flux increased with wind speed. Two mechanisms of droplet production, bubble bursting and fragmentation, yielded different distributions for diameter, speed, and angle. At a wind speed of about 3.5 m/s, aqueous suspensions of the ice-nucleating bacterium Pseudomonas syringae were collected at rates of 283 cells m⁻² s⁻¹ at 5 cm above the water surface, and at 14 cells m⁻² s⁻¹ at 10 cm above the water surface. At a wind speed of about 4.0 m/s, aqueous suspensions of P. syringae were collected at rates of 509 cells m⁻² s⁻¹ at 5 cm above the water surface, and at 81 cells m⁻² s⁻¹ at 10 cm above the water surface. The potential for microbial flux into the atmosphere from aquatic environments was calculated using known concentrations of bacteria in natural freshwater systems. Up to 3.1 × 10⁴ cells m⁻² s⁻¹ of water surface were estimated to leave the water in potentially suspended droplets (diameters <100 µm). Understanding the sources and mechanisms for bacteria to aerosolize from freshwater aquatic sources may aid in designing management strategies for pathogenic bacteria, and could shed light on how bacteria are involved in mesoscale atmospheric processes.

Diversity and Ice Nucleation Activity of Microorganisms Collected With a Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) in France and the United States

Many microbes relevant to crops, domestic animals, and humans are transported over long distances through the atmosphere. Some of these atmospheric microbes catalyze the freezing of water at higher temperatures and facilitate the onset of precipitation. We collected microbes from the lower atmosphere in France and the United States with a small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS). 55 sampling missions were conducted at two locations in France in 2014 (an airfield in Pujaut, and the top of Puy de Dôme), and three locations in the U.S. in 2015 (a farm in Blacksburg, Virginia, and a farm and a lake in Baton Rouge, Louisiana). The sUAS was a fixed-wing electric drone equipped with a remote-operated sampling device that was opened once the aircraft reached the desired sampling altitude (40-50 meters above ground level). Samples were collected on agar media (TSA, R4A, R2A, and CA) with and without the fungicide cycloheximide. Over 4,000 bacterial-like colonies were recovered across the 55 sUAS sampling missions. A positive relationship between sampling time and temperature and concentrations of culturable bacteria was observed for sUAS flights conducted in France, but not for sUAS flights conducted in Louisiana. A droplet freezing assay was used to screen nearly 2,000 colonies for ice nucleation activity, and 15 colonies were ice nucleation active at temperatures warmer than -8°C. Sequences from portions of 16S rDNA were used to identify 503 colonies from 54 flights to the level of genus. Assemblages of bacteria from sUAS flights in France (TSA) and sUAS flights in Louisiana (R4A) showed more similarity within locations than between locations. Bacteria collected with sUAS on TSA in France and Virginia were significantly different across all levels of classification tested (P < 0.001 for class, order, family, and genus). Principal Coordinates Analysis showed a strong association between the genera Curtobacterium, Pantoea, and Pseudomonas from sUAS flights in Virginia, and Agrococcus, Lysinibacillus, and Paenibacillus from sUAS flights in France. Future work aims to understand the potential origin of the atmospheric microbial assemblages collected with sUAS, and their association with mesoscale atmospheric processes.

Bag-breakup fragmentation as the dominant mechanism of sea-spray production in high winds

Showing the record strengths and growth-rates, recent hurricanes have highlighted needs for improving forecasts of tropical cyclone intensities most sensitive to models of the air-sea interaction. Especially challenging is the nature of sea-spray supposed to strongly affecting the momentum- and energy- air-sea fluxes at strong winds. Even the spray-generation mechanisms in extreme winds remained undetermined. Basing on high-speed video here we identify it as the bag-breakup mode of fragmentation of liquid in gaseous flows known in a different context. This regime is characterized by inflating and consequent bursting of the short-lived objects, bags, comprising sail-like water films surrounded by massive liquid rims then fragmented to giant droplets with sizes exceeding 500 micrometers. From first principles of statistical physics we develop statistical description of these phenomena and show that at extreme winds the bag-breakup is the dominant spray-production mechanism. These findings provide a new basis for understanding and modeling of the air-sea exchange processes at extreme winds.

Marine Atmospheric Corrosion of Carbon Steel: A Review

The atmospheric corrosion of carbon steel is an extensive topic that has been studied over the years by many researchers. However, until relatively recently, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the action of marine chlorides. Corrosion in coastal regions is a particularly relevant issue due the latter's great importance to human society. About half of the world's population lives in coastal regions and the industrialisation of developing countries tends to concentrate production plants close to the sea. Until the start of the 21st century, research on the basic mechanisms of rust formation in Cl--rich atmospheres was limited to just a small number of studies. However, in recent years, scientific understanding of marine atmospheric corrosion has advanced greatly, and in the authors' opinion a sufficient body of knowledge has been built up in published scientific papers to warrant an up-to-date review of the current state-of-the-art and to assess what issues still need to be addressed. That is the purpose of the present review. After a preliminary section devoted to basic concepts on atmospheric corrosion, the marine atmosphere, and experimentation on marine atmospheric corrosion, the paper addresses key aspects such as the most significant corrosion products, the characteristics of the rust layers formed, and the mechanisms of steel corrosion in marine atmospheres. Special attention is then paid to important matters such as coastal-industrial atmospheres and long-term behaviour of carbon steel exposed to marine atmospheres. The work ends with a section dedicated to issues pending, noting a series of questions in relation with which greater research efforts would seem to be necessary.

Evaporation of droplets in a Champagne wine aerosol

In a single glass of champagne about a million bubbles nucleate on the wall and rise towards the surface. When these bubbles reach the surface and rupture, they project a multitude of tiny droplets in the form of a particular aerosol holding a concentrate of wine aromas. Based on the model experiment of a single bubble bursting in idealized champagnes, the key features of the champagne aerosol are identified. In particular, we show that film drops, critical in sea spray for example, are here nonexistent. We then demonstrate that compared to a still wine, champagne fizz drastically enhances the transfer of liquid into the atmosphere. There, conditions on bubble radius and wine viscosity that optimize aerosol evaporation are provided. These results pave the way towards the fine tuning of flavor release during sparkling wine tasting, a major issue for the sparkling wine industry.

The elasticity of soap bubbles containing wormlike micelles

Slow-motion imaging of the rupture of soap bubbles generally shows the edges of liquid films retracting at a constant speed (known as the Taylor-Culick velocity). Here we investigate soap bubbles formed from simple solutions of a cationic surfactant (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide - CTAB) and sodium salicylate. The interaction of salicylate ions with CTAB leads to the formation of wormlike micelles (WLM), which yield a viscoelastic behavior to the liquid film of the bubble. We demonstrate that these elastic bubbles collapse at a velocity up to 30 times higher than the Taylor-Culick limit, which has never been surpassed. This is because during the bubble inflation, the entangled WLM chains stretch, storing elastic energy. This extra energy is then released during the rupture of the bubble, yielding an additional driving force for film retraction (besides surface tension). This new mechanism for the bursting of elastic bubbles may have important implications to the breakup of viscoelastic sprays in industrial applications.

Daughter bubble cascades produced by folding of ruptured thin films

Thin liquid films, such as soap bubbles, have been studied extensively for over a century because they are easily formed and mediate a wide range of transport processes in physics, chemistry and engineering. When a bubble on a liquid-gas or solid-gas interface (referred to herein as an interfacial bubble) ruptures, the general expectation is that the bubble vanishes. More precisely, the ruptured thin film is expected to retract rapidly until it becomes part of the interface, an event that typically occurs within milliseconds. The assumption that ruptured bubbles vanish is central to theories on foam evolution and relevant to health and climate because bubble rupture is a source for aerosol droplets. Here we show that for a large range of fluid parameters, interfacial bubbles can create numerous small bubbles when they rupture, rather than vanishing. We demonstrate, both experimentally and numerically, that the curved film of the ruptured bubble can fold and entrap air as it retracts. The resulting toroidal geometry of the trapped air is unstable, leading to the creation of a ring of smaller bubbles. The higher pressure associated with the higher curvature of the smaller bubbles increases the absorption of gas into the liquid, and increases the efficiency of rupture-induced aerosol dispersal.