Momentum Flux Balance at the Air‐Sea Interface

Qiao, Wenli; Wu, Lichuan; Song, Jinbao; Li, Xue; Rutgersson, Anna

doi:10.1029/2020jc016563

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Recently, they developed a high‐resolution coupled ocean‐wave‐atmosphere model (Uppsala University Coupled Model, UU‐CM) with improved representation of the ocean‐wave‐atmosphere interaction processes (Wu et al., 2019). From this coupled model, it was noticed that the ocean‐side stress can differ significantly from the air‐side stress and their ratio decreases with increasing inverse wave age (Qiao et al., 2021). 30‐year wave hindcast data were used to investigate the redistribution of air‐sea momentum flux by waves (Wu et al., 2022), and showed a similar result.…”

Section: Air‐sea Momentum Flux: Wind Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ocean Waves in Large‐Scale Air‐Sea Weather and Climate Systems

Babanin

2023

JGR Oceans

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Ocean surface gravity waves are mechanical water waves propagating along the sea interface, with heights from centimeters to more than 10 m. They are one of the most significant dynamic processes in the upper ocean which have received a lot of attention in the fluid mechanics and ocean science community, starting from Stokes (1847) and peaking about half a century ago (e.g., see Yuan and Huang (2012) for a review). When moderate-to-strong wind blows over the sea surface, most of the energy and momentum are first transported to surface waves, to support their growth (e.g., Kudryavtsev & Makin, 2001), before those are passed to the ocean through wave breaking and wave-turbulence interactions (Babanin, 2011). That is, the waves are the "sink" of the energy and momentum flux for the low atmosphere and the "source" for the upper ocean, and play an important role in redistribution of the air-sea energy and momentum fluxes at the space-time scale of the storms. Moreover, such energy and momentum balance is not quite dependent on the instantaneous and local wind, because the waves are integral of the wind over large scales. Furthermore, in large areas dominated by swells, the waves can be unrelated to the local wind altogether, and in fact can be responsible for generating the local winds (e.g., Hanley et al., 2010).

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Section: Air‐sea Momentum Flux: Wind Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ocean Waves in Large‐Scale Air‐Sea Weather and Climate Systems

Babanin

2023

JGR Oceans

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“…As in the flux calculations described above, the momentum flux at the air-sea interface is usually estimated by bulk formula, which is a function of a stress-transfer coefficient (normally referred to as drag coefficient) and the mean wind speed (e.g., Fairall et al, 1996b;Yu, 2019;Qiao et al, 2021). Thus, the zonal (t x ) and meridional (t y ) wind-stress components can be estimated as…”

Section: Momentum Fluxmentioning

confidence: 99%

On dynamical downscaling of ENSO-induced oceanic anomalies off Baja California Peninsula, Mexico: role of the air-sea heat flux

2023

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The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon is responsible for important physical and biogeochemical anomalies in the Northeastern Pacific Ocean. The event of 1997-98 has been one of the most intense in the last decades and it had large implications for the waters off Baja California (BC) Peninsula with a pronounced warm sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly adjacent to the coast. Downscaling of reanalysis products was carried out using a mesoscale-resolving numerical ocean model to reproduce the regional SST anomalies. The nested model has a 9 km horizontal resolution that extend from Cabo Corrientes to Point Conception. A downscaling experiment that computes surface fluxes online with bulk formulae achieves a better representation of the event than a version with prescribed surface fluxes. The nested system improves the representation of the large scale warming and the localized SST anomaly adjacent to BC Peninsula compared to the reanalysis product. A sensitivity analysis shows that air temperature and to a lesser extent wind stress anomalies are the primary drivers of the formation of BC temperature anomaly. The warm air-temperature anomalies advect from the near-equatorial regions and the central north Pacific and is associated with sea-level pressure anomalies in the synoptic-scale atmospheric circulation. This regional warm pool has a pronounced signature on sea level anomaly in agreement with observations, which may have implications for biogeochemistry.

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“…Freshwater inflows from runoff and precipitation affect the thermohaline circulation (Knudsen, 1900;Placke et al, 2021). Decadal variations in Baltic Sea salinity are largely caused by the accumulated runoff to the water body (Meier and Kauker, 2003;Väli et al, 2013;Radtke et al, 2020). On the one hand, the thermohaline circulation of the Baltic Sea is also influenced by inflows of highly saline water from the North Sea (that itself may be strongly impacted by precipitation and river runoff; Lehmann and Hinrichsen, 2000).…”

Section: Hydrological Coupling -Closing the Water Cyclementioning

confidence: 99%

Coupled regional Earth system modeling in the Baltic Sea region

et al. 2021

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Abstract. Nonlinear responses to externally forced climate change are known to dampen or amplify the local climate impact due to complex cross-compartmental feedback loops in the Earth system. These feedbacks are less well represented in the traditional stand-alone atmosphere and ocean models on which many of today's regional climate assessments rely (e.g., EURO-CORDEX, NOSCCA and BACC II). This has promoted the development of regional climate models for the Baltic Sea region by coupling different compartments of the Earth system into more comprehensive models. Coupled models more realistically represent feedback loops than the information imposed on the region by prescribed boundary conditions and, thus, permit more degrees of freedom. In the past, several coupled model systems have been developed for Europe and the Baltic Sea region. This article reviews recent progress on model systems that allow two-way communication between atmosphere and ocean models; models for the land surface, including the terrestrial biosphere; and wave models at the air–sea interface and hydrology models for water cycle closure. However, several processes that have mostly been realized by one-way coupling to date, such as marine biogeochemistry, nutrient cycling and atmospheric chemistry (e.g., aerosols), are not considered here. In contrast to uncoupled stand-alone models, coupled Earth system models can modify mean near-surface air temperatures locally by up to several degrees compared with their stand-alone atmospheric counterparts using prescribed surface boundary conditions. The representation of small-scale oceanic processes, such as vertical mixing and sea-ice dynamics, appears essential to accurately resolve the air–sea heat exchange over the Baltic Sea, and these parameters can only be provided by online coupled high-resolution ocean models. In addition, the coupling of wave models at the ocean–atmosphere interface allows for a more explicit formulation of small-scale to microphysical processes with local feedbacks to water temperature and large-scale processes such as oceanic upwelling. Over land, important climate feedbacks arise from dynamical terrestrial vegetation changes as well as the implementation of land-use scenarios and afforestation/deforestation that further alter surface albedo, roughness length and evapotranspiration. Furthermore, a good representation of surface temperatures and roughness length over open sea and land areas is critical for the representation of climatic extremes such as heavy precipitation, storms, or tropical nights (defined as nights where the daily minimum temperature does not fall below 20 ∘C), and these parameters appear to be sensitive to coupling. For the present-day climate, many coupled atmosphere–ocean and atmosphere–land surface models have demonstrated the added value of single climate variables, in particular when low-quality boundary data were used in the respective stand-alone model. This makes coupled models a prospective tool for downscaling climate change scenarios from global climate models because these models often have large biases on the regional scale. However, the coupling of hydrology models to close the water cycle remains problematic, as the accuracy of precipitation provided by atmosphere models is, in most cases, insufficient to realistically simulate the runoff to the Baltic Sea without bias adjustments. Many regional stand-alone ocean and atmosphere models are tuned to suitably represent present-day climatologies rather than to accurately simulate climate change. Therefore, more research is required into how the regional climate sensitivity (e.g., the models' response to a given change in global mean temperature) is affected by coupling and how the spread is altered in multi-model and multi-scenario ensembles of coupled models compared with uncoupled ones.

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Momentum Flux Balance at the Air‐Sea Interface

Cited by 7 publications

References 71 publications

Ocean Waves in Large‐Scale Air‐Sea Weather and Climate Systems

Ocean Waves in Large‐Scale Air‐Sea Weather and Climate Systems

On dynamical downscaling of ENSO-induced oceanic anomalies off Baja California Peninsula, Mexico: role of the air-sea heat flux

Coupled regional Earth system modeling in the Baltic Sea region

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