The importance of including sea surface current when estimating air-sea turbulent heat fluxes and wind stress in the Gulf Stream region

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangzhou Song
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flux ◽  
Wind Stress ◽  
Gulf Stream ◽  
Turbulent Heat Flux ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Turbulent Heat ◽  
Surface Currents ◽  
Mean Flow ◽  
Geostrophic Currents ◽  
Turbulent Heat Fluxes

AbstractUsing buoy observations from 2004 to 2010 and newly released atmospheric reanalysis and satellite altimetry-derived geostrophic currents from 1993 to 2017, the quantitative contribution of daily mean surface currents to air-sea turbulent heat flux and wind stress uncertainties in the Gulf Stream (GS) region is investigated based on bulk formulas. At four buoy stations, the daily mean latent (sensible) heat flux difference between the estimates with and without surface currents ranges from -18 (-4) to 20 (4) Wm-2, while the daily mean wind stress difference ranges from -0.04 to 0.02 Nm-2. The positive values indicate higher estimates with opposite directions between surface currents and absolute winds. The transition between positive and negative differences is significantly associated with synoptic-scale weather variations. The uncertainties based on buoy observations are approximately 7% and 3% for wind stress and turbulent heat fluxes, respectively. The new reanalysis and satellite geostrophic currents confirm the uncertainties identified by buoy observations with acceptable discrepancies and provide a spatial view of the uncertainty fields. The mean geostrophic currents are aligned with the surface wind along the GS; therefore, the turbulent heat fluxes and wind stress will be ‘underestimated’ with surface currents included. However, on both sides of the GS, the surface flow can be upwind due to possible mechanisms of eddy-mean flow interactions and recirculations, resulting in higher turbulent heat flux estimations. The wind stress and turbulent heat flux uncertainties experience significant seasonal variations and show long-term trends.

The Importance of Relative Wind Speed in Estimating Air–Sea Turbulent Heat Fluxes in Bulk Formulas: Examples in the Bohai Sea

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 589-603 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangzhou Song
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Layer ◽  
Heat Flux ◽  
Wind Speed ◽  
Bohai Sea ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Turbulent Heat ◽  
Surface Currents ◽  
The Bohai Sea ◽  
Turbulent Heat Fluxes ◽  
Relative Wind

AbstractSea surface currents are commonly neglected when estimating the air–sea turbulent heat fluxes in bulk formulas. Using buoy observations in the Bohai Sea, this paper investigated the effects of near-coast multiscale currents on the quantification of turbulent heat fluxes, namely, latent heat flux (LH) and sensible heat flux (SH). The maximum current reached 1 m s−1 in magnitude, and a steady northeastward current of 0.16 m s−1 appeared in the southern Bohai Strait. The predominant tidal signal was the semidiurnal current, followed by diurnal components. The mean absolute surface wind was from the northeast with a speed of approximately 3 m s−1. The surface winds at a height of 11 m were dominated by the East Asian monsoon. As a result of upwind flow, the monthly mean differences in LH and SH between the estimates with and without surface currents ranged from 1 to 2 W m−2 in July (stable boundary layer) and November (unstable boundary layer). The hourly differences were on average 10 W m−2 and ranged from 0 to 24 W m−2 due to changes in the relative wind speed by high-frequency rotating surface tidal currents. The diurnal variability in LH/SH was demonstrated under stable and unstable boundary conditions. Observations provided an accurate benchmark for flux comparisons. The newly updated atmospheric reanalysis products MERRA-2 and ERA5 were superior to the 1° OAFlux data at this buoy location. However, future efforts in heat flux computation are still needed to, for example, consider surface currents and resolve diurnal variations.

Augmentations to the Noah Model Physics for Application to the Yellow River Source Area. Part II: Turbulent Heat Fluxes and Soil Heat Transport

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 2677-2694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donghai Zheng ◽  
Rogier van der Velde ◽  
Zhongbo Su ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Jun Wen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flux ◽  
Organic Matter ◽  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Heat Transport ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Turbulent Heat Flux ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
The Yellow River ◽  
Turbulent Heat ◽  
Turbulent Heat Fluxes

Abstract This is the second part of a study on the assessment of the Noah land surface model (LSM) in simulating surface water and energy budgets in the high-elevation source region of the Yellow River. Here, there is a focus on turbulent heat fluxes and heat transport through the soil column during the monsoon season, whereas the first part of this study deals with the soil water flow. Four augmentations are studied for mitigating the overestimation of turbulent heat flux and underestimation of soil temperature measurements: 1) the muting effect of vegetation on the thermal heat conductivity is removed from the transport of heat from the first to the second soil layer, 2) the exponential decay factor imposed on is calculated using the ratio of the leaf area index (LAI) over the green vegetation fraction (GVF), 3) Zilitinkevich’s empirical coefficient for turbulent heat transport is computed as a function of the momentum roughness length , and 4) the impact of organic matter is considered in the parameterization of the thermal heat properties. Although usage of organic matter for calculating improves the correspondence between the estimates and laboratory measurements of heat conductivities, it is shown to have a relatively small impact on the Noah LSM performance even for large organic matter contents. In contrast, the removal of the muting effect of vegetation on and the parameterization of greatly enhances the soil temperature profile simulations, whereas turbulent heat flux and surface temperature computations mostly benefit from the modified formulation. Further, the nighttime surface temperature overestimation is resolved from a coupled land–atmosphere perspective.

scholarly journals Evaluation of the Weak Constraint Data Assimilation Approach for Estimating Turbulent Heat Fluxes at Six Sites

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1994 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinlei He ◽  
Tongren Xu ◽  
Sayed Bateni ◽  
Christopher Neale ◽  
Thomas Auligne ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flux ◽  
Error Term ◽  
Structural Model ◽  
Model Error ◽  
Turbulent Heat Flux ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Turbulent Heat ◽  
Model Errors ◽  
Turbulent Heat Fluxes ◽  
Study Sites

A number of studies have estimated turbulent heat fluxes by assimilating sequences of land surface temperature (LST) observations into the strong constraint-variational data assimilation (SC-VDA) approaches. The SC-VDA approaches do not account for the structural model errors and uncertainties in the micrometeorological variables. In contrast to the SC-VDA approaches, the WC-VDA approach (the so-called weak constraint-VDA) accounts for the effects of structural and model errors by adding a model error term. In this study, the WC-VDA approach is tested at six study sites with different climatic and vegetative conditions. Its performance is also compared with that of SC-VDA at the six study sites. The results show that the WC-VDA produces 10.16% and 10.15% lower root mean square errors (RMSEs) for sensible and latent heat flux estimates compared with the SC-VDA approach. The model error term can capture errors in the turbulent heat flux estimates due to errors in LST and micrometeorological measurements, as well as structural model errors, and does not allow those errors to adversely affect the turbulent heat flux estimates. The findings also indicate that the estimated model error term varies reasonably well, so as to capture the misfit between predicted and observed net radiation in different hydrological and vegetative conditions. Finally, synthetically generated positive (negative) noises are added to the hydrological input variables (e.g., LST, air temperature, air humidity, incoming solar radiation, and wind speed) to examine whether the WC-VDA approach can capture those errors. It was found that the WC-VDA approach accounts for the errors in the input data and reduces their effect on the turbulent heat flux estimates.

The Effect of Soil on the Summertime Surface Energy Budget of a Humid Subarctic Tundra in Northern Quebec, Canada

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 2547-2564
Author(s):  
Georg Lackner ◽  
Daniel F. Nadeau ◽  
Florent Domine ◽  
Annie-Claude Parent ◽  
Gonzalo Leonardini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flux ◽  
Latent Heat ◽  
Latent Heat Flux ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Sensible Heat Flux ◽  
Arctic Region ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Surface Energy Budget ◽  
Turbulent Heat ◽  
Turbulent Heat Fluxes

AbstractRising temperatures in the southern Arctic region are leading to shrub expansion and permafrost degradation. The objective of this study is to analyze the surface energy budget (SEB) of a subarctic shrub tundra site that is subject to these changes, on the east coast of Hudson Bay in eastern Canada. We focus on the turbulent heat fluxes, as they have been poorly quantified in this region. This study is based on data collected by a flux tower using the eddy covariance approach and focused on snow-free periods. Furthermore, we compare our results with those from six Fluxnet sites in the Arctic region and analyze the performance of two land surface models, SVS and ISBA, in simulating soil moisture and turbulent heat fluxes. We found that 23% of the net radiation was converted into latent heat flux at our site, 35% was used for sensible heat flux, and about 15% for ground heat flux. These results were surprising considering our site was by far the wettest site among those studied, and most of the net radiation at the other Arctic sites was consumed by the latent heat flux. We attribute this behavior to the high hydraulic conductivity of the soil (littoral and intertidal sediments), typical of what is found in the coastal regions of the eastern Canadian Arctic. Land surface models overestimated the surface water content of those soils but were able to accurately simulate the turbulent heat flux, particularly the sensible heat flux and, to a lesser extent, the latent heat flux.

scholarly journals Air–Sea Turbulent Heat Fluxes in Climate Models and Observational Analyses: What Drives Their Variability?

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (8) ◽  
pp. 2397-2421 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Justin Small ◽  
Frank O. Bryan ◽  
Stuart P. Bishop ◽  
Robert A. Tomas
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flux ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Turbulent Heat Flux ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Turbulent Heat ◽  
Realistic Representation ◽  
Frontal Zones ◽  
The Tropics

Abstract A traditional view is that the ocean outside of the tropics responds passively to atmosphere forcing, which implies that air–sea heat fluxes are mainly driven by atmosphere variability. This paper tests this viewpoint using state-of-the-art air–sea turbulent heat flux observational analyses and a climate model run at different resolutions. It is found that in midlatitude ocean frontal zones the variability of air–sea heat fluxes is not predominantly driven by the atmosphere variations but instead is forced by sea surface temperature (SST) variations arising from intrinsic oceanic variability. Meanwhile in most of the tropics and subtropics wind is the dominant driver of heat flux variability, and atmosphere humidity is mainly important in higher latitudes. The predominance of ocean forcing of heat fluxes found in frontal regions occurs on scales of around 700 km or less. Spatially smoothing the data to larger scales results in the traditional atmosphere-driving case, while filtering to retain only small scales of 5° or less leads to ocean forcing of heat fluxes over most of the globe. All observational analyses examined (1° OAFlux; 0.25° J-OFURO3; 0.25° SeaFlux) show this general behavior. A standard resolution (1°) climate model fails to reproduce the midlatitude, small-scale ocean forcing of heat flux: refining the ocean grid to resolve eddies (0.1°) gives a more realistic representation of ocean forcing but the variability of both SST and of heat flux is too high compared to observational analyses.

scholarly journals Evaluating and improving modeled turbulent heat fluxes across the North American Great Lakes

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 5559-5578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Umarporn Charusombat ◽  
Ayumi Fujisaki-Manome ◽  
Andrew D. Gronewold ◽  
Brent M. Lofgren ◽  
Eric J. Anderson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flux ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Eddy Covariance ◽  
North American ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Turbulent Heat ◽  
The North ◽  
Turbulent Heat Fluxes ◽  
North American Great Lakes ◽  
Eddy Covariance Measurements

Abstract. Turbulent fluxes of latent and sensible heat are important physical processes that influence the energy and water budgets of the North American Great Lakes. These fluxes can be measured in situ using eddy covariance techniques and are regularly included as a component of lake–atmosphere models. To help ensure accurate projections of lake temperature, circulation, and regional meteorology, we validated the output of five algorithms used in three popular models to calculate surface heat fluxes: the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM, with three different options for heat flux algorithm), the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, and the Large Lake Thermodynamic Model. These models are used in research and operational environments and concentrate on different aspects of the Great Lakes' physical system. We isolated only the code for the heat flux algorithms from each model and drove them using meteorological data from four over-lake stations within the Great Lakes Evaporation Network (GLEN), where eddy covariance measurements were also made, enabling co-located comparison. All algorithms reasonably reproduced the seasonal cycle of the turbulent heat fluxes, but all of the algorithms except for the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) algorithm showed notable overestimation of the fluxes in fall and winter. Overall, COARE had the best agreement with eddy covariance measurements. The four algorithms other than COARE were altered by updating the parameterization of roughness length scales for air temperature and humidity to match those used in COARE, yielding improved agreement between modeled and observed sensible and latent heat fluxes.

Effects of spatial resolution and temporal offset of air-sea boundary-layer variables on turbulent heat flux estimates

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tong Lee ◽  
Chelle Centemann ◽  
Carol Anne Clayson ◽  
Mark Bourassa ◽  
Shannon Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Layer ◽  
Heat Flux ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Turbulent Heat Flux ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Turbulent Heat ◽  
Input Variables ◽  
Temporal Offset

<p>Air-sea turbulent heat fluxes and their spatial gradients are important to the ocean, climate, weather, and their interactions. Satellite-based estimation of air-sea latent and sensible fluxes, providing broad coverage, require measurements of sea surface temperature, ocean-surface wind speed, and air temperature and humidity above sea surface. Because no single satellite has been able to provide simultaneous measurements of these input variables, they typically come from various satellites with different spatial resolutions and sampling times that can be offset by hours. These factors introduce errors in the estimated heat fluxes and their gradients that are not well documented. As a model-based assessment of these errors, we performed a simulation using a Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model forced by high-resolution blended satellite SST for the Gulf Stream extension region with a 3-km resolution and with 30-minute output. Latent and sensible heat fluxes were first computed from input variables with the original model resolutions and at coincident times. We then computed the heat fluxes by (1) decimating the input variables to various resolutions from 12.5 to 50 km, and (2) offsetting the “sampling” times of some input variables from others by 3 hours. The resultant estimations of heat fluxes and their gradients from (1) and (2) were compared with the counterparts without reducing resolution and without temporal offset of the input variables. The results show that reducing input-variable resolutions from 12.5 to 50 km weakened the magnitudes of the time-mean and instantaneous heat fluxes and their gradients substantially, for example, by a factor of two for the time-mean gradients. The temporal offset of input variables substantially impacted the instantaneous fluxes and their gradients, although not their time-mean values. The implications of these effects on scientific and operational applications of heat flux products will be discussed. Finally, we highlight a mission concept for providing simultaneous, high-resolution measurements of boundary-layer variables from a single satellite to improve air-sea turbulent heat flux estimation.</p>

Heat Flux Measurements in Homogeneous Curved Shear Flow

1999 ◽  
Vol 121 (1) ◽  
pp. 190-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. G. L. Holloway ◽  
S. A. Ebrahimi-Sabet
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flux ◽  
Shear Flow ◽  
Turbulent Heat Flux ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Turbulent Shear ◽  
Turbulent Heat ◽  
Curvature Effects ◽  
Turbulent Shear Stress ◽  
Uniform Shear ◽  
Flow Curvature

Turbulent heat fluxes were measured far downstream of a fine heating wire stretched spanwise across a curved, uniform shear flow. The turbulence was approximately homogeneous and the overheat small enough to be passive. Strong destabilizing and stabilizing curvature effects were produced by directing the shear toward the center of curvature and away from the center of curvature, respectively. The dimensionless turbulent shear stress was strongly affected by the flow curvature, but the dimensionless components of the turbulent heat flux were found to be relatively insensitive.

An Explicit Algebraic Model for Turbulent Heat Transfer in Wall-Bounded Flow With Streamline Curvature

2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. A. Younis ◽  
B. Weigand ◽  
S. Spring
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Boundary Layer ◽  
Heat Flux ◽  
Algebraic Model ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Turbulent Heat Transfer ◽  
Turbulent Heat ◽  
Streamline Curvature ◽  
Turbulent Heat Fluxes ◽  
The Mean

Fourier’s law, which forms the basis of most engineering prediction methods for the turbulent heat fluxes, is known to fail badly in capturing the effects of streamline curvature on the rate of heat transfer in turbulent shear flows. In this paper, an alternative model, which is both algebraic and explicit in the turbulent heat fluxes and which has been formulated from tensor-representation theory, is presented, and its applicability is extended by incorporating the effects of a wall on the turbulent heat transfer processes in its vicinity. The model’s equations for flows with curvature in the plane of the mean shear are derived and calculations are performed for a heated turbulent boundary layer, which develops over a flat plate before encountering a short region of high convex curvature. The results show that the new model accurately predicts the significant reduction in the wall heat transfer rates wrought by the stabilizing-curvature effects, in sharp contrast to the conventional model predictions, which are shown to seriously underestimate the same effects. Comparisons are also made with results from a complete heat-flux transport model, which involves the solution of differential transport equations for each component of the heat-flux tensor. Downstream of the bend, where the perturbed boundary layer recovers on a flat wall, the comparisons show that the algebraic model yields indistinguishable predictions from those obtained with the differential model in regions where the mean-strain field is in rapid evolution and the turbulence processes are far removed from local equilibrium.

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