Whitecapping plays an important role in many air-sea exchange and upper ocean processes.Traditionally,whitecap coverage is parameterized as a function of wind speed only.At present,the relative speed of ocean current to wind is considered to be important in the air-sea exchange parameterization which is the function of wind speed only.In this paper,the effects of ocean surface velocity (current velocity and wave induced velocity) and the wave parameters on whitecap coverage through relative speeds are investigated,by applying a 2-parameter whitecap coverage model to the Atlantic Ocean.It is found that the impacts of both current and wave on whitecap coverage are considerable in the most part of the Atlantic Ocean.It is interesting that the effect of wave is more significant than that of current.
A sea spray generation function(SSGF)for bubble-derived droplets that takes into account the impact of wave state on whitecap coverage was presented in this study.By combining the new SSGF with a previous wave-state-dependent SSGF for spume droplets,an SSGF applicable to both bubble-derived and spume droplets that includes the impacts of wave state was obtained.The produced SSGF varies with surface wind as well as with wave development.As sea surface wind increases,more sea spray droplets are produced,resulting in larger SSGFs and volume fluxes.Meanwhile,under the same wind conditions,the SSGF is mediated by wave state,with larger SSGFs corresponding to older waves and larger windsea Reynolds numbers.The impact of wave state on sea spray heat flux was then estimated by applying this SSGF while considering the thermodynamic feedback process.Under given atmospheric and oceanic conditions,the estimated sea spray heat flux increases with wind speed,wave age,and windsea Reynolds number.
A study is presented on the modulation of ripples induced by a long surface wave (LW) and a new theoretical modula-tion model is proposed. In this model, the wind surface stress modulation is related to the modulation of ripple spectrum. The model results show that in the case of LW propagating in the wind direction with the wave age parameter of LW increasing, the area with enhanced shear stress shifts from the region near the LW crest on the upwind slope to the LW trough. With a smaller wave age parameter of LW, the ripple modulation has the maximum on the upwind slope in the vicinity of LW crest, while with a larger parameter the enhancement of ripple spectrum does not occur in that region. At low winds the amplitude of ripple modulation transfer function (MTF) is larger in the gravity wave range, while at moderate or high winds it changes little in the range from short gravity waves to capillary waves.
It is generally believed that the equilibrium range of wind wave spectrum is in the form of the-4 rather than-5 power law.However,in the widely applied P-M spectrum the equilibrium range is given in the form of-5 power law.In the present paper,a spectrum for full development of wind waves is proposed using the form of the Neumann spectrum,but adopting the-4 power law for the equilibrium range.The proposed spectrum has been verified with NDBC buoy data and could be a substitute for the P-M spectrum.
