The Research Vessel Moana Wave during the TOGA COARE experiment in the equatorial western Pacific Ocean.
Marine and Air-Sea Interaction
The goal of this work is to improve analyses and forecasts of weather, climate, and environmental conditions over the oceans and in coastal zones.
The Marine and Air-Sea Interaction group is primarily an experimental group investigating various issues in air-sea/ice interaction associated with the transfer of momentum, heat, moisture, trace gases, and particles at the wavy interface of the ocean.
Principal Focus
Our principal focus is on fluxes: measurement techniques, studies of fundamental physical processes, and development of simplified representations of those processes. The group also deals with the scope of interactions (atmospheric or oceanic) from the microscale to boundary-layer scales.
Applications
The work has application in various areas such as operational weather forecasting, global climate modeling, air quality, assessment of CO2 trends, improving satellite retrievals, and understanding air-sea-interaction mechanisms affecting hurricane intensity.
Examples
- We have developed advanced techniques to measure air-sea turbulent fluxes from ships
and with this unique data we developed a new flux parameterization that is now
being incorporated into high-resolution mesocale models and global climate
models.
- A new parameterization of sea spray fluxes is being used in research on
the formation of hurricanes.
- Data from numerous division field programs has
been used to improve satellite algorithms.
- Our work in wind-wave coupling will lead to better forecasts of wave heights
for ships on the open ocean and coastal regions.
- Advances in the extraction of turbulence and cloud
microphysical information from surface-based remote sensors (Doppler radar
and lidar) will lead to a new approach for developing boundary layer models for
weather and pollution forecasting.
- Techniques learned from turbulence and cloud microphysical studies have
also been applied to study the effects of clouds and cloud properties on
the surface energy budget of the ocean and the Arctic ice cap. The sensitivity
of this surface cloud energy forcing to climate regime (equatorial, trade,
subtropical, storm- track, and polar) has demonstrated the overwhelming
climate importance of clouds.
- We are currently working with other NOAA labs to develop a new technique to measure CO2 fluxes over the open ocean. This is an important step in assessing the role of oceanic uptake in the global CO2 budget and the likely effectiveness of controls on usage of fossil fuels and land clearing.