The Role of Bubbles in Air-Sea Gas Exchange: A Critical Review

A new critical review in Reviews of Geophysics, involving researchers from around 10 international teams, synthesises decades of theories, laboratory experiments, field observations, and modelling to clarify how bubbles generated by breaking waves reshape air-sea gas exchange. Bubble-mediated transfer increases nonlinearly with wind speed, varies with gas solubility, and favours gas invasion over evasion. Yet current estimates of bubble-mediated CO₂ and oxygen (O₂) exchange still differ by roughly half to one order of magnitude. The review highlights three priorities: resolving bubble dynamics within the uppermost meter of the ocean, constraining the solubility dependence of bubble-mediated transfer velocity and asymmetry, and reconciling laboratory and field estimates. Progress will require coordinated measurements of bubbles, wave breaking, and multiple gases, supported by physically based models. We invite the community to collaborate in improving gas-exchange representations in ocean and Earth system models.

The study was led by Yuanxu Dong, formerly based at GEOMAR and Heidelberg University and recently appointed co-chair of the SOLAS Early Career Scientists Committee.

Reference: Dong, Y., Jähne, B., Woolf, D. K., et al. (2026). Seasonal upwelling–dust controls on export production in the Canary Current System revealed by Lagrangian particle tracking. The role of bubbles in air-sea gas exchange: A critical review. Rev. Geophys., 64, e2025RG000903. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025RG000903