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Evidence of spray‐mediated air‐sea enthalpy flux within tropical cyclones
Author(s) -
Richter David H.,
Stern Daniel P.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2014gl059746
Subject(s) - enthalpy , dropsonde , wind speed , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , tropical cyclone , meteorology , sea spray , heat flux , climatology , flux (metallurgy) , aerosol , heat transfer , geology , thermodynamics , physics , materials science , metallurgy
It has long been conjectured that spray ejected from the high‐wind ocean surface enhances air/sea enthalpy fluxes, but a lack of observational data, particularly at wind speeds exceeding 20 m s −1 , has prevented either confirmation or refutation of this hypothesis. The current study has two aims: first, to provide an estimate of surface enthalpy fluxes obtained from dropsonde data and second, to provide evidence of spray‐mediated enthalpy transfer. These are accomplished first by assuming that Monin‐Obukhov similarity is satisfied throughout the bottom 100 m of the high‐wind boundary layer, then by focusing on the enthalpy flux H K rather than its transfer coefficient C K . The scaling of H K with wind speed in observational data sets reveals similarities to spray‐mediated fluxes predicted by a newly developed surface flux model, in contrast with measurements made in a laboratory setting. This behavior supports the claim that surface enthalpy fluxes are dominated by spray within tropical cyclones.