Working symposium on sea-air chemistry: Summary and recommendations

The sea-air interface is probably the most poorly understood of the three boundaries separating the system sea-air-land. However, the chemistry of the sea-air interface is receiving increasing attention as its role in environmental problems becomes more apparent. Perhaps in no other region of the environment do microscopic physicochemical and hydrodynamic processes so profoundly affect large-scale geophysical phenomena as they do in the transfer of material from sea to air. The solutions to many problems in air pollution and water pollution as well as a complete assessment of the geochemical cycles of many elements are critically dependent on a better understanding of sea-surface phenomena.