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Understanding and quantifying ocean-atmosphere exchanges of the long-lived greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), nitrous oxide (N 2 O) and methane (CH 4 ) are important for understanding the global biogeochemical cycles of carbon and nitrogen in the context of ongoing global climate change. In this chapter we summarise our current state of knowledge regarding the oceanic distributions, formation and consumption pathways, and oceanic uptake and emissions of CO 2 , N 2 O and CH 4 , with a particular emphasis on the upper ocean. We specifically consider the role of the ocean in regulating the tropospheric content of these important radiative gases in a world in which their tropospheric content is rapidly increasing and estimate the impact of global change on their present and future oceanic uptake and/or emission. Finally, we evaluate the various uncertainties associated with the most commonly used methods for estimating uptake and emission and identify future research needs.

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A B S T R A C TIt is well known that iron fertilization can increase primary production and hence CO 2 drawdown over a significant fraction of the oceans. What is less well established is the extent to which this leads to long-term sequestration of carbon to the deep oceans, and to feedbacks to the atmosphere arising from increased biological activity. In this note results for changes in trace gas concentrations during an iron addition experiment in the Southern Ocean are presented. They demonstrate that a complex situation exists; some gases (DMS, CH 3 I, CHBr 2 Cl) show increases in concentration following fertilization with iron while others show no change (CH 3 ONO 2 , CH 2 ClI) or even a decrease (CHBr 3 ). The concomitant effects on air-sea fluxes of these gases are potentially important for climate and atmospheric composition.

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