scholarly journals In Situ and Satellite Evaluation of Air–Sea Flux Variation near Ocean Temperature Gradients

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 1583-1602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Plagge ◽  
James B. Edson ◽  
Douglas Vandemark

Abstract Observations of ocean–atmosphere coupling across persistent mesoscale sea surface temperature (SST) gradients are used to examine the controls of atmospheric stability, pressure gradient force, and heat flux that are considered central to oft-observed coupling between wind and SST. Moored air–sea flux measurements near the Gulf Stream are combined with QuikSCAT satellite scatterometer equivalent neutral wind (ENW) data to assess correlations between SST, air–sea fluxes, pressure, and wind perturbations at scales of 10–100 days. The net effect of ocean fronts meandering past the site enabled buoy observation of SST impacts on wind, with coupling coefficients of 0.3–0.5 similar to past studies. Wind stress–SST and ENW–SST correlation coefficients are slightly higher, and roughly 20% of the ENW perturbation is attributed to stratification impacts predicted by Monin–Obukhov (MO) similarity theory. Significantly higher correlation is observed when relating wind or stress perturbations to buoyant heat flux variation. Atmospheric pressure perturbation with SST of order 0.5 hPa °C−1 is observed, as well as high negative correlation between wind and pressure variations. Length and time scales associated with the coupling indicate that peak correlations occur at 50–70 days and 300–500 km, consistent with mesoscale meander scales. Coupling coefficient values vary significantly depending on analysis time scale and exhibit a range near to recently observed interbasin variability. This variability is attributed to the extent of oceanic length scales permitted in the analysis. Together, results affirm the central role of SST-induced turbulent heat flux in controlling pressure field adjustments and thereby the wind perturbations over SST fronts.

1994 ◽  
Vol 116 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Kim ◽  
T. W. Simon ◽  
M. Kestoras

An experimental investigation of transition on a flat-plate boundary layer was performed. Mean and turbulence quantities, including turbulent heat flux, were sampled according to the intermittency function. Such sampling allows segregation of the signal into two types of behavior—laminarlike and turbulentlike. Results show that during transition these two types of behavior cannot be thought of as separate Blasius and fully turbulent profiles, respectively. Thus, simple transition models in which the desired quantity is assumed to be an average, weighted on intermittency, of the laminar and fully turbulent values may not be entirely successful. Deviation of the flow identified as laminarlike from theoretical laminar behavior is due to a slow recovery after the passage of a turbulent spot, while deviation of the flow identified as turbulentlike from fully turbulent characteristics is possibly due to an incomplete establishment of the fully turbulent power spectral distribution. Measurements were taken for two levels of free-stream disturbance—0.32 and 1.79 percent. Turbulent Prandtl numbers for the transitional flow, computed from measured shear stress, turbulent heat flux, and mean velocity and temperature profiles, were less than unity.


2013 ◽  
Vol 723 ◽  
pp. 91-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. M. J. Lazeroms ◽  
G. Brethouwer ◽  
S. Wallin ◽  
A. V. Johansson

AbstractThis work describes the derivation of an algebraic model for the Reynolds stresses and turbulent heat flux in stably stratified turbulent flows, which are mutually coupled for this type of flow. For general two-dimensional mean flows, we present a correct way of expressing the Reynolds-stress anisotropy and the (normalized) turbulent heat flux as tensorial combinations of the mean strain rate, the mean rotation rate, the mean temperature gradient and gravity. A system of linear equations is derived for the coefficients in these expansions, which can easily be solved with computer algebra software for a specific choice of the model constants. The general model is simplified in the case of parallel mean shear flows where the temperature gradient is aligned with gravity. For this case, fully explicit and coupled expressions for the Reynolds-stress tensor and heat-flux vector are given. A self-consistent derivation of this model would, however, require finding a root of a polynomial equation of sixth-order, for which no simple analytical expression exists. Therefore, the nonlinear part of the algebraic equations is modelled through an approximation that is close to the consistent formulation. By using the framework of a$K\text{{\ndash}} \omega $model (where$K$is turbulent kinetic energy and$\omega $an inverse time scale) and, where needed, near-wall corrections, the model is applied to homogeneous shear flow and turbulent channel flow, both with stable stratification. For the case of homogeneous shear flow, the model predicts a critical Richardson number of 0.25 above which the turbulent kinetic energy decays to zero. The channel-flow results agree well with DNS data. Furthermore, the model is shown to be robust and approximately self-consistent. It also fulfils the requirements of realizability.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (8) ◽  
pp. 2397-2421 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Justin Small ◽  
Frank O. Bryan ◽  
Stuart P. Bishop ◽  
Robert A. Tomas

Abstract A traditional view is that the ocean outside of the tropics responds passively to atmosphere forcing, which implies that air–sea heat fluxes are mainly driven by atmosphere variability. This paper tests this viewpoint using state-of-the-art air–sea turbulent heat flux observational analyses and a climate model run at different resolutions. It is found that in midlatitude ocean frontal zones the variability of air–sea heat fluxes is not predominantly driven by the atmosphere variations but instead is forced by sea surface temperature (SST) variations arising from intrinsic oceanic variability. Meanwhile in most of the tropics and subtropics wind is the dominant driver of heat flux variability, and atmosphere humidity is mainly important in higher latitudes. The predominance of ocean forcing of heat fluxes found in frontal regions occurs on scales of around 700 km or less. Spatially smoothing the data to larger scales results in the traditional atmosphere-driving case, while filtering to retain only small scales of 5° or less leads to ocean forcing of heat fluxes over most of the globe. All observational analyses examined (1° OAFlux; 0.25° J-OFURO3; 0.25° SeaFlux) show this general behavior. A standard resolution (1°) climate model fails to reproduce the midlatitude, small-scale ocean forcing of heat flux: refining the ocean grid to resolve eddies (0.1°) gives a more realistic representation of ocean forcing but the variability of both SST and of heat flux is too high compared to observational analyses.


2020 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 108523
Author(s):  
Nima Fallah Jouybari ◽  
T. Staffan Lundström ◽  
J.Gunnar I. Hellström

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