An experimental and theoretical investigation of the inertial-dissipation method for computing air-sea fluxes

Details

• Personal Author:
  Edson, J. B. ; Fairall, C. W. ; Mestayer, P. G. ; Larsen, S. E.
• Corporate Authors:
  Wave Propagation Laboratory
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research)
• Description:
  The inertial-dissipation method has long been used to estimate air-sea fluxes from ships because it is not necessary to correct for ship motion. A detailed comparison of the inertial-dissipation fluxes with the eddy covariance method is given using data from the HEXOS main experiment, HEXMAX. In this experiment, inertial-dissipation packages were deployed at the end of a 17-m boom, in a region relatively free of flow distortion, and on a mast 7 m above the platform (26 m above the sea surface) in a region of considerable flow distortion. The effects of flow distortion and an extensive error analysis of both inertial-dissipation and covariance measurements is given. We show that the inertial-dissipation measurements are much less affected by
  
  the flow distortion caused by the platform as well as by the boom itself. The inertial-dissipation (boom and mast) and boom covariance estimates of stress agree within ±20%. The latent heat flux estimates agree within approximately ±45%. The sensible heat flux estimates agree within ±26% after correction for velocity contamination. The larger uncertainty in the latent heat fluxes is due to poor performance of our Lyman-a hygrometers in the seaspray environment. Total production of turbulent kinetic energy approximately equals dissipation, with an imbalance of approximately 12% based on our value of the effective Kolmogorov constant. Improved parameterizations for the stability dependence of the dimensionless humidity and temperature structure functions are given. Using these functions and a von Karman constant of 0.4, we find a best fit for effective Kolmogorov constants of 0.55 for velocity and 0.79 for temperature and humidity.
  
  
• Keywords:
  Mathematical Models Ocean-atmosphere Interaction Mathematical Models Ocean-atmosphere Interaction
• Series:
  NOAA technical memorandum ERL WPL   199
• Document Type:
  Technical Memorandum
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC0 Public Domain
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:a63a630511708765abbe0458457e111d697d77d7397f92657a052a5c658bd518
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/32470/noaa_32470_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 69.56 MB ]