Underway measurements for 2-day upwelling front experiment during METEOR cruise M93

Understanding the physical processes driving the strong variability is of fundamental importance for constraining the effect of marine emissions from upwelling regions on the global CO2 budget. In this study, a frontal decay on length scales of (10km) was observed off the Peruvian coast following a pronounced decrease in downfrontal wind speed with a time lag of 9 hours.

Simultaneously, the sea-to-air flux of CO2 on the inshore (cold) side of the front dropped from up to 80 to 10 mmol/m**2/day, while the offshore (warm) side of the front was constantly outgassing at a rate of 10-20 mmol/m**2/day. Based on repeated ship transects the decay of the front was observed to occur in two phases. The first phase was characterized by a development of coherent surface temperature anomalies which gained in amplitude over 6-9 hours.