Identification

Title

Evidence of spray-mediated air-sea enthalpy flux within tropical cyclones

Abstract

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 HK rather than its transfer coefficient CK. The scaling of HKwith 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.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7b27w7g

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2014-04-28T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact