Single bubble dissolution model - The graphical user interface SiBu-GUI

The presented software application allows GUI-based access to the bubble dissolution model presented by McGinnis et al. [McGinnis, D.F., Greinert, J., Artemov, Y., Beaubien, S.E., Wüest, A., 2006. The fate of rising methane bubbles in stratified waters: what fraction reaches the atmosphere? Journal of Geophysical Research 111, C09007. doi:10.1029/2005JC003183]. It quantifies the dissolution of gas bubbles (containing any combination of CH4, CO2, O2, N2, and Ar) in marine or lacustrine environments based on the initial bubble size, free gas composition and environmental parameters (temperature, salinity, and dissolved gas concentrations). The software enables scientists and engineers to evaluate bubble dynamics in a simple way on Windows PCs. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Software availability Name of software: SiBu-GUI, Single Bubble Dissolution Model Developer: J. Greinert, NIOZ Contact address: J. Greinert, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), P.O. Box 59, 1790 AB, Den Burg (Texel), The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected] Availability and documentation: Executable, documentation and demo data at http://users.ugent.be/wjgreiner/SiBu-GUI/ Year first available: 2008 Hardware required: Any Windows PC (WIN2000, XP, Vista) Software required: none Program size: 316 KB The application utilizes the code presented by McGinnis et al. (2006) which was primarily developed to track rising methane for Sea Research (NIOZ), P.O. l.: þ31 222 369 397; fax: þ31 All rights reserved. , J., Daniel F. McGinnis, Single .envsoft.2008.12.011 (CH4) bubbles released from cold seeps but can also be used in any field where bubble dissolution is important. This could be lake aeration, sewage treatment, ozonation, etc. The presented software can support e.g. climate change studies that investigate methane release in shallow water (shelf areas) aiming to understand how much of this methane can reach the sea surface based on e.g. initial bubble size, released depth or gas composition. Methane is globally released from the seafloor at continental margins (Judd et al., 2002) and from lakes (e.g. Schmid et al., 2007) from very different water depths and under various environmental conditions. At high pressure and low temperature, methane is captured inwater cages forming gas hydrate in the sediment. In the global warming scenario, huge amounts of gas hydrate might decompose and release methane into the water column as free gas that ‘bubbles’ through the water column and might reach the atmosphere. At cold seeps but also at hot vents, dissolved methane is anaerobically oxidized by a consortium of methane oxidizing archaea and sulphate reducing bacteria forming a very effective filter for preventing dissolved methane from entering the water. The free gas phase (bubbles) is not affected by this process; thus, gas (methane) is more likely to be transported high up into the bubble dissolution model – The graphical user interface SiBu-GUI, J. Greinert, D.F. McGinnis / Environmental Modelling & Software xxx (2009) 1–2 2 ARTICLE IN PRESS water column when transported as bubbles. Schmale et al. (2005) showed that the sea surface methane concentration is enriched due to methane release from bubbling seeps in the Black Sea. This process together with decomposing gas hydrates has also been assumed to be the source of extraordinary methane enrichments at the Siberian shelf (Shakhova et al., 2005). This in particular is of great importance as shallow (<100 m) marine areas with gas hydrate captured in permafrost and underneath it will decompose faster due to global warming and bubble transport will most likely play a key role as the transport process. The presented application ‘SiBu-GUI’ aims at helping scientists to better evaluate what happens with released methane bubbles on their way through the water column (Greinert et al., 2006; Ostrovsky et al., 2008). By applying specific environmental input parameters (temperature, salinity, CH4, O2 depth profiles) usually gained via CTD-casts and visual or hydro-acoustically determined bubble size spectra, the software provides first estimates of the impact active seepage might have on increasing methane concentrations in the atmosphere. Please cite this article in press as: Greinert, J., Daniel F. McGinnis, SingleEnviron. Model. Softw. (2009), doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2008.12.011References Greinert, J., Artemov, Y., Egorov, V., De Batist, M., McGinnis, D., 2006.1300-m-high risingbubbles from mud volcanoes at 2080 m in the Black Sea: hydroacoustic character-istics and temporal variability. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 244, 1–15.Judd, A.G., Hovland,M., Dimitrov, L.I., Garcia Gil, S., Jukes, V., 2002. The geological budgetat continental margins and its influence on climate change. Geofluids 2, 109–126.McGinnis, D.F., Greinert, J., Artemov, Y., Beaubien, S.E., Wüest, A., 2006. The fate ofrising methane bubbles in stratified waters: what fraction reaches the atmo-sphere? Journal of Geophysical Research 111, C09007, doi:10.1029/2005JC003183.Ostrovsky, I., McGinnis, D.F., Lapidus, L., Eckert, W., 2008. Quantifying gas ebullitionwith echosounder: the role of methane transport by bubbles in a medium-sizedlake. Limnology and Oceanography: Methods 6, 105–118.Schmale, O., Greinert, J., Rehder, G., 2005. Methane emission from high-intensitymarine gas seeps in the Black Sea into the atmosphere. Geophysical ResearchLetters 32, L07609, doi:10.1029/2004GL021138.Schmid, M., De Batist, M., Granin, N.G., Kapitanov, V.A., McGinnis, D.F.,Mizandrontsev, I.B., Obzhirov, A.I., Wueest, A., 2007. Sources and sinks ofmethane in Lake Baikal: a synthesis of measurements and modeling. Limnologyand Oceanography 52, 1824–1837.Shakhova, N., Semiletov, I., Panteleev, G., 2005. The distribution of methane on theSiberian Arctic shelves: implications for the marine methane cycle. GeophysicalResearch Letters 32, doi:10.1029/2005GL022751. bubble dissolution model – The graphical user interface SiBu-GUI,