[1] Heat and turbulent kinetic energy budgets of the ocean surface layer during the passage of Hurricane Frances were examined using a three-dimensional hydrodynamic model. In situ data obtained with the Electromagnetic-Autonomous Profiling Explorer (EM-APEX) floats were used to set up the initial conditions of the model simulation and to compare to the simulation results. The spatial heat budgets reveal that during the hurricane passage, not only the entrainment in the bottom of surface mixed layer but also the horizontal water advection were important factors determining the spatial pattern of sea surface temperature. At the free surface, the hurricane-brought precipitation contributed a negligible amount to the air-sea heat exchange, but the precipitation produced a negative buoyancy flux in the surface layer that overwhelmed the instability induced by the heat loss to the atmosphere. Integrated over the domain within 400 km of the hurricane eye on day 245.71 of 2004, the rate of heat anomaly in the surface water was estimated to be about 0.45 PW (1 PW = 10 15 W), with about 20% (0.09 PW in total) of this was due to the heat exchange at the air-sea interface, and almost all the remainder (0.36 PW) was downward transported by oceanic vertical mixing. Shear production was the major source of turbulent kinetic energy amounting 88.5% of the source of turbulent kinetic energy, while the rest (11.5%) was attributed to the wind stirring at sea surface. The increase of ocean potential energy due to vertical mixing represented 7.3% of the energy deposited by wind stress.
[1] The temporal and spatial variations of pCO 2 in the ocean surface layer in response to the passage of Hurricane Frances (2004) were investigated with a coupled threedimensional hydrodynamic and carbon model. The results showed that the sea surface temperature cooling was the dominant cause of the decrease of surface pCO 2 , while the entrainment of water with higher CO 2 levels partially offset the cooling-induced decrease. The surface distribution of pCO 2 was thus found to mimic the physical deepening processes, with a "right bias" to the hurricane track. The impact of the hurricane on the local air-sea CO 2 exchange extended to about 100 km on both sides of the hurricane track. The whole passage of Hurricane Frances was estimated to have caused a CO 2 efflux of about 3.504-10.363 Tg (1 Tg = 10 12 g) C from ocean to the atmosphere. Globally, hurricanes in 2004 were estimated to have released a CO 2 efflux of 0.047-0.141 Pg (1 Pg = 10 15 g) C in total when extrapolating from Hurricane Frances. Under our assumptions, the CO 2 efflux caused by the passages of global hurricanes should have increased by about 71.2%-75.0% in past decades.Citation: Huang, P., and J. Imberger (2010), Variation of pCO 2 in ocean surface water in response to the passage of a hurricane,
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.