Hydrological Effects on the Air-Ocean Coupled System
Abstract
The ocean and atmosphere are driven by the fluxes of momentum, heat, and water mass. The importance of the fluxes of momentum and heat is well recognized by both meteorologists and oceanographers. The hydrological cycle is, however, only given considerable attention in atmospheric models since the latent heat release is an important source of the atmospheric general circulation. The hydrological cycle is given less attention in ocean models although it is realized that evaporation and precipitation are contributors to the surface buoyance flux which determines the depth of mixing and drives the thermohaline circulation. The cloud and the ocean mixed layer are highly coupled by both the heat and moisture fluxes across the air-ocean interface. Two time scales are found in this paper; a sea surface temperature (SST) time scale, tau(TAU), that is virtually controlled by the oceanic planetary boundary layer (OPBL), and a cloud-SST coupling time scale, tau(n),TAU. These two time scales depend on the stability of the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL). An air-ocean model is developed in this paper for the coupled system of an unstable atmosphere overlying a stable ocean. The model results demonstrate that the exchangers of heat and water fluxes across the sea surface leads to both growing and decaying modes of oscillation on 3-6 day and 20-30 day time scales. These oscillatory solutions are entirely thermodynamic and do not require wave dynamics for their existence.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA530613
Entities
People
- Pecheng C. Chu
- Roland W. Garwood Jr.
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School