Open AccessHigh-Resolution Satellite Surface Latent Heat Fluxes in North Atlantic Hurricanes
Author(s) -
Jiping Liu,
Judith A. Curry,
Carol Anne Clayson,
Mark A. Bourassa
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
monthly weather review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.862
H-Index - 179
eISSN - 1520-0493
pISSN - 0027-0644
DOI - 10.1175/2011mwr3548.1
Subject(s) - environmental science , latent heat , satellite , climatology , flux (metallurgy) , meteorology , sea surface temperature , wind speed , heat flux , heat transfer , geology , geography , materials science , physics , aerospace engineering , engineering , metallurgy , thermodynamics
This study presents a new high-resolution satellite-derived ocean surface flux product, XSeaFlux, which is evaluated for its potential use in hurricane studies. The XSeaFlux employs new satellite datasets using improved retrieval methods, and uses a new bulk flux algorithm formulated for high wind conditions. The XSeaFlux latent heat flux (LHF) performs much better than the existing numerical weather prediction reanalysis and satellite-derived flux products in a comparison with measurements from the Coupled Boundary Layer Air–Sea Transfer (CBLAST) field experiment. Also, the XSeaFlux shows well-organized LHF structure and large LHF values in response to hurricane conditions relative to the other flux products. The XSeaFlux dataset is used to interpret details of the ocean surface LHF for selected North Atlantic hurricanes. Analysis of the XSeaFlux dataset suggests that ocean waves, sea spray, and cold wake have substantial impacts on LHF associated with the hurricanes.