The Role of Wind Waves in Dynamics of the Air-Sea Interface

TL;DR

This paper explores how wind waves influence the air-sea interface by integrating wind wave models with boundary layer dynamics, providing a quantitative framework for understanding energy transfer and its effects on ocean-atmosphere interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a new modeling approach combining wind wave models with boundary layer modules to quantitatively analyze energy and momentum transfer at the air-sea interface.

Findings

Estimation of wave energy input and dissipation rates for simple wave scenarios

Impact assessment of wind sea on boundary layer characteristics

Proposition of a new generation of wind wave models with integrated boundary layer blocks

Abstract

Wind waves are considered as an intermediate small-scale dynamic process at the air-sea interface,which modulates radically middle-scale dynamic processes of the boundary layers in water and air. It is shown that with the aim of a quantitative description of the impact said, one can use the numerical wind wave models which are added with the blocks of the dynamic atmosphere boundary layer (DABL) and the dynamic water upper layer (DWUL). A mathematical formalization for the problem of energy and momentum transfer from the wind to the upper ocean is given on the basis of the well known mathematical representations for mechanisms of a wind wave spectrum evolution. The problem is solved quantitatively by means of introducing special system parameters: the relative rate of the wave energy input, IRE, and the relative rate of the wave energy dissipation, DRE. For two simple wave-origin situations, the certain estimations for values of IRE and DRE are found, and the examples of calculating an impact of a wind sea on the characteristics of both the boundary layer of atmosphere and the water upper layer are given. The results obtained permit to state that the models of wind waves of the new (fifth) generation, which are added with the blocks of the DABL and the DWUL, could be an essential chain of the general model describing the ocean-atmosphere circulation.