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An experimental and theoretical investigation of the inertial-dissipation method for computing air-sea fluxes
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1991
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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.
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Rights Information:CC0 Public Domain
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