Meteorological and Wave Measurements from a Stable Research Platform at Sea
Abstract
The approach that describes air-sea exchange as interaction between a flow and a rough surface, now considered traditional, dates back to the 1950s (Charnock, 1956). Within that approach, the complex exchange processes are condensed down to exchange coefficients, thus delivering computational efficiency in large-scale numerical modeling of air-sea meteorology. However, inability to distinguish between momentum and kinetic energy transferred to waves from those transferred to currents, as well as considerable variance in the experimental estimates of the drag coefficients, show some of the applicability limits for this traditional approach. Clearly, a short-term phase-resolved wave forecasting, a goal of the High-Resolution Wave-Air-Sea Interaction project, requires a more detailed mechanistic description of the marine boundary layer dynamics with a special focus on the elements distinctly introduced by the compliant interface and the sea surface waves. While wave dynamics on the water side has already been reduced to a computationally-intensive numerical problem (Friehe et al., 2007, section III.B), the complexity of which is determined by the number of nonlinearly interacting wave modes, the wind driving of the waves on the other hand, is less understood. Current challenges include gaps in theoretical knowledge and in techniques for numerical modeling. In particular, the observational validation for most of the wind-wave interaction mechanisms proposed so far in theoretical works is lacking. The purpose of this work is to advance our understanding on these open issues.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA527019
Entities
People
- Tihomir Hristov
Organizations
- Johns Hopkins University