Sea Spray and Icing in the Emerging Open Water of the Arctic Ocean
Abstract
The goal of this project is to develop the capability to quantify both the concentration of sea spray over the open ocean and the severity of sea spray icing on fixed offshore structures. We will use existing information on the relationship of the spray concentration distribution to wind speed (Lewis and Schwarz 2004; Jones and Andreas 2012) to estimate the sea spray climatology in ice-free northern oceans from reanalysis data and the time-varying extent of the sea ice cover. Our field campaigns in the second and third years will focus on measuring sea spray parameters and relevant meteorological conditions to characterize spray drop distributions at high wind speeds and cold temperatures. Sea spray data at high wind speeds are sparse, and there are no measurements of the spray drop concentration at air temperatures below freezing. This effort directly addresses two of the focus areas in the core ONR Arctic program: Improving understanding of the physical environment and processes in the Arctic Ocean. Developing integrated ocean-ice-wave-atmosphere Earth system models for improved prediction on time scales of days to months.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA580285
Entities
People
- Edgar L. Andreas
Organizations
- Northwest Research Associates