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Andreas Andersson
,
Anna Rutgersson
, and
Erik Sahlée

Abstract

During the years 2010–13, atmospheric eddy covariance measurement of oxygen was performed at the marine site Östergarnsholm in the Baltic Sea. The fast response optode Microx TX3 was used with two different types of tapered sensors. In spite of the increased lifetime, the optical isolated sensor is limited by the slower response time and is unsuitable for ground-based eddy covariance measurements. The sensor without optical isolation shows a −⅔ slope within the inertial subrange and attains sufficient response time and precision to be used in air–sea applications during continuous periods of 1–4 days. Spectral and cospectral analysis shows oxygen measured with the nonoptical isolated sensor to follow the same shape as for CO2 and water vapor when normalized. The sampling rate of the Microx TX3 is 2 Hz; however, the sensor was found to have a limited response and resolution, yielding a flux loss in the frequency range f > 0.3 Hz. This can be corrected for by applying cospectral similarity simultaneously using measurements of latent heat as the reference signal. On average the magnitude of the cospectral correction added 20% to the uncorrected oxygen flux during neutral atmospheric stratification.

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Lichuan Wu
,
David Sproson
,
Erik Sahlée
, and
Anna Rutgersson

Abstract

Surface gravity waves, present at the air–sea interface, can affect the momentum flux and heat fluxes by modifying turbulence in the lower layers of the atmosphere. How to incorporate wave impacts into model parameterizations is still an open issue. In this study, the influence of a dynamic roughness length (considering instantaneous wave-induced stress), horizontal resolution, and the coupling time resolution between waves and the atmosphere on storm simulations are investigated using sensitivity experiments. Based on the simulations of six midlatitude storms using both an atmosphere–wave coupled model and an atmospheric stand-alone model, the impacts are investigated. Adding the wave-induced stress weakens the storm intensity. Applying a roughness length tuned to an average friction velocity is not enough to capture the simulation results from “true” wave-related roughness length. High-horizontal-resolution models intensify the simulation of storms, which is valid for both coupled and uncoupled models. Compared with the atmospheric stand-alone model, the coupled model (considering the influence of dynamic roughness length) is more sensitive to the model horizontal resolution. During reasonable ranges, the coupling time resolution does not have a significant impact on the storm intensity based on the limited experiments used in this study. It is concluded that the dynamic wave influence (instantaneous wave influence) and the model resolution should be taken into account during the development of forecast and climate models.

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Erik Sahlée
,
Ann-Sofi Smedman
,
Anna Rutgersson
, and
Ulf Högström

Abstract

Recent research has found that boundary layer turbulence changes its organization as the stratification approaches neutral from the unstable side. When the thermal forcing weakens in combination with wind speed above approximately 10 m s−1, detached eddies are formed in the upper part of the surface layer. These eddies effectively transport drier and colder air from aloft to the surface as they move downward, thereby enhancing the surface fluxes of sensible and latent heat. This effect has been observed over both land and sea; that is, it is not dependent on the nature of the underlying surface. Here the authors perform a sensitivity study of how this reorganization of the turbulence structure influences the global air–sea heat fluxes. Using modified bulk formulations incorporating this effect, the magnitude of the enhancement in a climatic sense was estimated by the use of 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) data in the bulk formulas. It is found that for the 1979–2001 period, the global increase of the latent and sensible heat fluxes over the ice-free oceans is 3.6 and 1.2 W m−2, respectively. These numbers suggest that this effect is of some significance. The results also indicate that the regional and seasonal variability may be large. The largest annual increases are found over the southern oceans between 30° and 60°S where the sensible heat flux increases by 2.3 W m−2 and the latent heat flux by 6.5 W m−2. Ocean areas close to the equator experience almost no increase, whereas the latent heat flux from the Arabian Sea during the monsoon period is enhanced by 11.5 W m−2.

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Erik Sahlée
,
Ann-Sofi Smedman
,
Ulf Högström
, and
Anna Rutgersson

Abstract

Processes influencing the air–sea exchange of humidity during unstable and neutral stratification were studied using tower measurements from the island of Östergarnsholm in the Baltic Sea. For small air–sea temperature differences, the neutral exchange coefficient for humidity C EN was found to increase with increasing wind speed, attaining a value of approximately 1.8 × 10−3 at 13 m s−1. The high C EN values were observed during situations when the characteristics of the turbulence structure differed from what would be expected from traditional theory. Results from spectral analysis point to a situation in which the vertical transport of humidity is dominated by smaller-scale eddies. Quadrant analysis showed that these eddies enhance the humidity flux by bringing down drier air from layers aloft. These findings are consistent with recent analyses of the neutral boundary layer in which a change of turbulence regime has been observed. The conclusion is made that this dynamic effect accounts for the observed increase in C EN. Here, C EN was calculated using a wave-dependent normalized wind gradient, which had the effect of reducing the value by about 10% during swell relative to calculations using a non-wave-dependent normalized wind gradient.

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Ulf Högström
,
Erik Sahlée
,
Ann-Sofi Smedman
,
Anna Rutgersson
,
Erik Nilsson
,
Kimmo K. Kahma
, and
William M. Drennan

Abstract

Atmospheric and surface wave data from several oceanic experiments carried out on the Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP) and the Air–Sea Interaction Spar (ASIS) have been analyzed with the purpose of identifying swell-related effects on the surface momentum exchange during near-neutral atmospheric conditions and wind-following or crosswind seas. All data have a pronounced negative maximum in uw cospectra centered at the frequency of the dominant swell n p , meaning a positive contribution to the stress. A similar contribution at this frequency is also obtained for the corresponding crosswind cospectrum. The magnitude of the cospectral maximum is shown to be linearly related to the square of the orbital motion, being equal to , where H sd is the swell-significant wave height, the effect tentatively being due to strong correlation between the surface component of the orbital motion and the pattern of capillary waves over long swell waves.

A model for prediction of the friction velocity from measurements of H sd, n p , and the 10-m wind speed U 10 is formulated and tested against an independent dataset of ~400 half-hour measurements during swell, giving good result.

The model predicts that the drag coefficient C D , which is traditionally modeled as a function of U 10 alone (e.g., the COARE algorithm), becomes strongly dependent on the magnitude of the swell factor and that C D can attain values several times larger than predicted by wind speed–only models. According to maps of the global wave climate, conditions leading to large effects are likely to be widespread over the World Ocean.

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Ulf Högström
,
Erik Sahlée
,
Ann-Sofi Smedman
,
Anna Rutgersson
,
Erik Nilsson
,
Kimmo K. Kahma
, and
William M. Drennan

Abstract

Fifteen hours of consecutive swell data from the experiment Flux, État de la Mer, et Télédétection en Condition de Fetch Variable (FETCH) in the Mediterranean show a distinct upward momentum flux. The characteristics are shown to vary systematically with wind speed. A hysteresis effect is found for wave energy of the wind-sea waves when represented as a function of wind speed, displaying higher energy during decaying winds compared to increasing winds. For the FETCH measurements, the upward momentum transfer regime is found to begin for wind speeds lower than about U = 4 m s−1. For the lowest observed wind speeds U < 2.4 m s−1, the water surface appears to be close to dynamically smooth. In this range almost all the upward momentum flux is accomplished by the peak in the cospectrum between the vertical and horizontal components of the wind velocity. It is demonstrated that this contribution in turn is linearly related to the swell significant wave height H sd in the range 0.6 < H sd < 1.4 m. For H sd < 0.6 m, the contribution is zero in the present dataset but may depend on the swell magnitude in other situations. It is speculated that the observed upward momentum flux in the smooth regime, which is so strongly related to the cospectral peak at the dominant swell frequency, might be caused by the recirculation mechanism found by Wen and Mobbs in their numerical simulation of laminar flow of a nonlinear progressive wave at low wind speed.

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Ian M. Brooks
,
Margaret J. Yelland
,
Robert C. Upstill-Goddard
,
Philip D. Nightingale
,
Steve Archer
,
Eric d'Asaro
,
Rachael Beale
,
Cory Beatty
,
Byron Blomquist
,
A. Anthony Bloom
,
Barbara J. Brooks
,
John Cluderay
,
David Coles
,
John Dacey
,
Michael DeGrandpre
,
Jo Dixon
,
William M. Drennan
,
Joseph Gabriele
,
Laura Goldson
,
Nick Hardman-Mountford
,
Martin K. Hill
,
Matt Horn
,
Ping-Chang Hsueh
,
Barry Huebert
,
Gerrit de Leeuw
,
Timothy G. Leighton
,
Malcolm Liddicoat
,
Justin J. N. Lingard
,
Craig McNeil
,
James B. McQuaid
,
Ben I. Moat
,
Gerald Moore
,
Craig Neill
,
Sarah J. Norris
,
Simon O'Doherty
,
Robin W. Pascal
,
John Prytherch
,
Mike Rebozo
,
Erik Sahlee
,
Matt Salter
,
Ute Schuster
,
Ingunn Skjelvan
,
Hans Slagter
,
Michael H. Smith
,
Paul D. Smith
,
Meric Srokosz
,
John A. Stephens
,
Peter K. Taylor
,
Maciej Telszewski
,
Roisin Walsh
,
Brian Ward
,
David K. Woolf
,
Dickon Young
, and
Henk Zemmelink

As part of the U.K. contribution to the international Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere Study, a series of three related projects—DOGEE, SEASAW, and HiWASE—undertook experimental studies of the processes controlling the physical exchange of gases and sea spray aerosol at the sea surface. The studies share a common goal: to reduce the high degree of uncertainty in current parameterization schemes. The wide variety of measurements made during the studies, which incorporated tracer and surfactant release experiments, included direct eddy correlation fluxes, detailed wave spectra, wind history, photographic retrievals of whitecap fraction, aerosolsize spectra and composition, surfactant concentration, and bubble populations in the ocean mixed layer. Measurements were made during three cruises in the northeast Atlantic on the RRS Discovery during 2006 and 2007; a fourth campaign has been making continuous measurements on the Norwegian weather ship Polarfront since September 2006. This paper provides an overview of the three projects and some of the highlights of the measurement campaigns.

Full access
Ian M. Brooks
,
Margaret J. Yelland
,
Robert C. Upstill-Goddard
,
Philip D. Nightingale
,
Steve Archer
,
Eric d'Asaro
,
Rachael Beale
,
Cory Beatty
,
Byron Blomquist
,
A. Anthony Bloom
,
Barbara J. Brooks
,
John Cluderay
,
David Coles
,
John Dacey
,
Michael Degrandpre
,
Jo Dixon
,
William M. Drennan
,
Joseph Gabriele
,
Laura Goldson
,
Nick Hardman-Mountford
,
Martin K. Hill
,
Matt Horn
,
Ping-Chang Hsueh
,
Barry Huebert
,
Gerrit De Leeuw
,
Timothy G. Leighton
,
Malcolm Liddicoat
,
Justin J. N. Lingard
,
Craig Mcneil
,
James B. Mcquaid
,
Ben I. Moat
,
Gerald Moore
,
Craig Neill
,
Sarah J. Norris
,
Simon O'Doherty
,
Robin W. Pascal
,
John Prytherch
,
Mike Rebozo
,
Erik Sahlee
,
Matt Salter
,
Ute Schuster
,
Ingunn Skjelvan
,
Hans Slagter
,
Michael H. Smith
,
Paul D. Smith
,
Meric Srokosz
,
John A. Stephens
,
Peter K. Taylor
,
Maciej Telszewski
,
Roisin Walsh
,
Brian Ward
,
David K. Woolf
,
Dickon Young
, and
Henk Zemmelink

Abstract

No Abstract available.

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