scholarly journals Sensitivity of Sea‐Surface Enthalpy and Momentum Fluxes to Sea Spray Microphysics

Author(s):  
Sydney Sroka ◽  
Kerry Emanuel
Author(s):  
Lianxin Zhang ◽  
Xuefeng Zhang ◽  
William Perrie ◽  
Changlong Guan ◽  
Bo Dan ◽  
...  

AbstractA coupled ocean-wave-sea spray model system is used to investigate the impacts of sea spray and sea surface roughness on the response of the upper ocean to the passage of the super typhoon Haitang. Sea spray mediated heat and momentum fluxes are derived from an improved version of Fairall’s heat fluxes formulation (Zhang et al., 2017) and Andreas’s sea spray-mediated momentum flux models. For winds ranging from low to extremely high speeds, a new parameterization scheme for the sea surface roughness is developed, in which the effects of wave state and sea spray are introduced. In this formulation, the drag coefficient has minimal values over the right quadrant of the typhoon track, along which the typhoon-generated waves are longer, smoother, and older, compared to other quadrants. Using traditional interfacial air-sea turbulent (sensible, latent, and momentum) fluxes, the sea surface cooling response to typhoon Haitang is overestimated by 1 °C, which can be compensated by the effects of sea spray and ocean waves on the right side of the storm. Inclusion of sea spray-mediated turbulent fluxes and sea surface roughness, modulated by ocean waves, gives enhanced cooling along the left edges of the cooling area by 0.2 °C, consistent with the upper ocean temperature observations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sydney Sroka ◽  
Kerry Emanuel

<p>Since air-sea enthalpy and momentum fluxes control a tropical cyclone’s intensification rate, increasing the accuracy of the associated bulk parameterizations is crucially important for improving forecast skill. Despite the powerful influence that sea spray has on air-sea enthalpy and momentum fluxes, most state-of-the-art tropical cyclone forecast models do not incorporate the microphysics of sea spray evaporation into their boundary layer flux schemes. We present the results from direct numerical simulations of the evaporating sea surface subject to a strong wind forcing to help evaluate the parameterizations of bulk exchange coefficients of momentum and enthalpy. By developing microphysics-based bulk parameterizations, the influence that sea spray exerts on tropical cyclone intensification can be more accurately simulated and intensity forecasts could be improved.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 1248
Author(s):  
Jian Shi ◽  
Zhihao Feng ◽  
Yuan Sun ◽  
Xueyan Zhang ◽  
Wenjing Zhang ◽  
...  

The sea surface drag coefficient plays an important role in momentum transmission between the atmosphere and the ocean, which is affected by ocean waves. The total air–sea momentum flux consists of effective momentum flux and sea spray momentum flux. Sea spray momentum flux involves sea surface drag, which is largely affected by the ocean wave state. Under strong winds, the sea surface drag coefficient (CD) does not increase linearly with the increasing wind speed, namely, the increase of CD is inhibited by strong winds. In this study, a sea surface drag coefficient is constructed that can be applied to the calculation of the air–sea momentum flux under high wind speed. The sea surface drag coefficient also considers the influence of wave state and sea spray droplets generated by wave breaking. Specially, the wave-dependent sea spray generation function is employed to calculate sea spray momentum flux. This facilitates the analysis not only on the sensitivity of the sea spray momentum flux to wave age, but also on the effect of wave state on the effective CD (CD, eff) under strong winds. Our results indicate that wave age plays an important role in determining CD. When the wave age is >0.4, CD decreases with the wave age. However, when the wave age is ≤0.4, CD increases with the wave age at low and moderate wind speeds but tends to decrease with the wave age at high wind speeds.


Author(s):  
Sydney Sroka ◽  
Kerry Emanuel

AbstractThe intensity of tropical cyclones is sensitive to the air-sea fluxes of enthalpy and momentum. Sea spray plays a critical role in mediating enthalpy and momentum fluxes over the ocean’s surface at high wind speeds, and parameterizing the influence of sea spray is a crucial component of any air-sea interaction scheme used for the high wind regime where sea spray is ubiquitous. Many studies have proposed parameterizations of air-sea flux that incorporate the microphysics of sea spray evaporation and the mechanics of sea spray stress. Unfortunately, there is not yet a consensus on which parameterization best represents air-sea exchange in tropical cyclones, and the different proposed parameterizations can yield substantially different tropical cyclone intensities. This paper seeks to review the developments in parameterizations of the sea spray-mediated enthalpy and momentum fluxes for the high wind speed regime and to synthesize key findings that are common across many investigations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 821-848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yimin Ma ◽  
Noel E. Davidson ◽  
Yi Xiao ◽  
Jian-Wen Bao

Abstract In high-wind conditions, sea spray, in conjunction with a generally decreasing drag coefficient for increasing winds, greatly modulates surface heat and momentum fluxes. It has been suggested that the process can be particularly important for the prediction of tropical cyclones (TCs), yet its robust application in operational forecast systems has remained elusive. A sea spray inclusion scheme and a modified algorithm for momentum exchange have been implemented in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s current operational TC model. Forecasts for a limited sample of TCs demonstrate that the revised parameterizations improve initialized and forecast intensities, while mostly maintaining track prediction skill. TC Yasi (2011) has been studied for impacts of the revised parameterization on rapid intensification (RI). Compared with the conventional bulk air–sea exchange parameterization, the revised version simulates a cooler and moister region near the surface in the eyewall/eye region, adjusts the RI evolution by an earlier and stronger subsidence in the eye, and simulates a stronger radial pulsating of the eye and eyewall convection on relatively short time scales. The inclusion of the new scheme enhances RI features characterized by eyewall ascent, radial convergence, and inertial stability inside the radius of azimuthal-mean maximum wind over low- to midlevels, and by a ringlike radial distribution of relative vorticity above the boundary layer. In addition, it allows a higher maximum intensity wind speed based on Emanuel’s maximum potential intensity theory. It is shown that, as expected, this is mainly because of a larger ratio of enthalpy and momentum exchange coefficients.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lianxin Zhang ◽  
Changlong Guan ◽  
Chunjian Sun ◽  
Siyu Gao ◽  
Shaomei Yu

A one-dimensional turbulent model is used to investigate the effect of sea spray mediated turbulent fluxes on upper ocean temperature during the passage of typhoon Yagi over the Kuroshio Extension area in 2006. Both a macroscopical sea spray momentum flux algorithm and a microphysical heat and moisture flux algorithm are included in this turbulent model. Numerical results show that the model can well reproduce the upper ocean temperature, which is consistent with the data from the Kuroshio Extension Observatory. Besides, the sea surface temperature is decreased by about 0.5°C during the typhoon passage, which also agrees with the sea surface temperature dataset derived from Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing and Reynolds. Diagnostic analysis indicates that sea spray acts as an additional source of the air-sea turbulent fluxes and plays a key role in increasing the turbulent kinetic energy in the upper ocean, which enhances the temperature diffusion there. Therefore, sea spray is also an important factor in determining the upper mixed layer depth during the typhoon passage.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (18) ◽  
pp. 11089-11117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luisa Ickes ◽  
Grace C. E. Porter ◽  
Robert Wagner ◽  
Michael P. Adams ◽  
Sascha Bierbauer ◽  
...  

Abstract. In recent years, sea spray as well as the biological material it contains has received increased attention as a source of ice-nucleating particles (INPs). Such INPs may play a role in remote marine regions, where other sources of INPs are scarce or absent. In the Arctic, these INPs can influence water–ice partitioning in low-level clouds and thereby the cloud lifetime, with consequences for the surface energy budget, sea ice formation and melt, and climate. Marine aerosol is of a diverse nature, so identifying sources of INPs is challenging. One fraction of marine bioaerosol (phytoplankton and their exudates) has been a particular focus of marine INP research. In our study we attempt to address three main questions. Firstly, we compare the ice-nucleating ability of two common phytoplankton species with Arctic seawater microlayer samples using the same instrumentation to see if these phytoplankton species produce ice-nucleating material with sufficient activity to account for the ice nucleation observed in Arctic microlayer samples. We present the first measurements of the ice-nucleating ability of two predominant phytoplankton species: Melosira arctica, a common Arctic diatom species, and Skeletonema marinoi, a ubiquitous diatom species across oceans worldwide. To determine the potential effect of nutrient conditions and characteristics of the algal culture, such as the amount of organic carbon associated with algal cells, on the ice nucleation activity, Skeletonema marinoi was grown under different nutrient regimes. From comparison of the ice nucleation data of the algal cultures to those obtained from a range of sea surface microlayer (SML) samples obtained during three different field expeditions to the Arctic (ACCACIA, NETCARE, and ASCOS), we found that they were not as ice active as the investigated microlayer samples, although these diatoms do produce ice-nucleating material. Secondly, to improve our understanding of local Arctic marine sources as atmospheric INPs we applied two aerosolization techniques to analyse the ice-nucleating ability of aerosolized microlayer and algal samples. The aerosols were generated either by direct nebulization of the undiluted bulk solutions or by the addition of the samples to a sea spray simulation chamber filled with artificial seawater. The latter method generates aerosol particles using a plunging jet to mimic the process of oceanic wave breaking. We observed that the aerosols produced using this approach can be ice active, indicating that the ice-nucleating material in seawater can indeed transfer to the aerosol phase. Thirdly, we attempted to measure ice nucleation activity across the entire temperature range relevant for mixed-phase clouds using a suite of ice nucleation measurement techniques – an expansion cloud chamber, a continuous-flow diffusion chamber, and a cold stage. In order to compare the measurements made using the different instruments, we have normalized the data in relation to the mass of salt present in the nascent sea spray aerosol. At temperatures above 248 K some of the SML samples were very effective at nucleating ice, but there was substantial variability between the different samples. In contrast, there was much less variability between samples below 248 K. We discuss our results in the context of aerosol–cloud interactions in the Arctic with a focus on furthering our understanding of which INP types may be important in the Arctic atmosphere.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Bruch ◽  
Jacques Piazzola ◽  
Hubert Branger ◽  
Alexander M. J. van Eijk ◽  
Christopher Luneau ◽  
...  

<p>Recent studies stress the importance of considering sea surface wave characteristics in sea spray generation functions (SSGFs). To this end, the effect of interacting winds and waves on sea spray generation was studied using data collected during the Marine Aerosol Tunnel Experiments (MATE2019) conducted at the OSU-Pytheas large wind-wave tunnel facility at Luminy, Marseille (France) (Study detailed in Bruch et al., in review). A total of 20 wind and wave combinations were tested, with wind speeds between 8 and 20 m s<sup>-1 </sup>combined with pure wind waves and waves generated by a wavemaker, allowing for a range of wave characteristics and wave ages. Similar wind speed profiles and whitecapping behavior between the laboratory and the field suggest that the laboratory is appropriate for the study of sea spray production. The sea spray generation flux was estimated from logarithmic vertical sea spray concentration profiles using a flux-profile method using Monin and Obukhov (1954) theory. Results show that the production of larger droplets at 20-35 µm radius is well correlated with the wave slope variance <S<sup>2</sup>>, whilst the wind friction velocity cubed u<sub>*</sub><sup>3 </sup>performs best over 7-20 µm. Two SSGFs are proposed. <br><br>The original work presented here is an assessment of the validity of the two SSGFs in the field. The two laboratory-derived SSGFs are tested in two numerical models; the stationary Marine Aerosol Concentration Model (MACMod) (used in Laussac et al., 2018), and the non-hydrostatic mesocale atmospheric model Meso-NH (jointly developed by the LA - UMR 5560 - and the CNRM - UMR 3589). The <S<sup>2</sup>> necessary required by both SSGFs is estimated using a wind-dependent formulation (Cox and Munk, 1956) and a spectral spectral model (Elfouhaily et al., 1997). Results show that the numerical simulations offer good results relative to sea spray measurements obtained in the North-West Mediterranean in fetch-limited conditions (Laussac et al., 2018), as well as other existing SSGFs in the literature. These results suggest that wind-wave tunnel facilities present an interesting alternative for determining the sea spray generation flux, especially in high wind speed conditions in which deployment in the field is difficult.</p><p>References :<br><br>Bruch, W., Piazzola, J., Branger, H., van Eijk, A. M. J., Luneau, C., Bourras, D., Tedeschi, G. (In review). Sea Spray Generation Dependence on Wind and Wave Combinations : A Laboratory Study. Submitted in : <em>Boundary Layer Meteorology</em>.</p><p>Cox, C., & Munk, W. (1956). Slopes of the sea surface deduced from photographs of sun glitter. <em>University of California Press</em>. Vol. 6,9,401-488.</p><p>Elfouhaily, T., Chapron, B., Katsaros, K., & Vandemark, D. (1997). A unified directional spectrum for long and short wind driven waves. <em>Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans</em>, <em>102</em>(C7),15781-15796.<br><br>Monin, A. S., & Obukhov, A. M. (1954). Basic laws of turbulent mixing in the surface layer of the atmosphere. Contrib. Geophys. Inst. Acad. Sci. USSR,151(163),e187.<br><br>Laussac, S., Piazzola, J., Tedeschi, G., Yohia, C., Canepa, E., Rizza, U., & Van Eijk, A. M. J. (2018). Development of a fetch dependent sea-spray source function using aerosol concentration measurements in the North-Western Mediterranean. Atmospheric Environment,193,177-189.</p>


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