TY - JOUR
T1 - Air-Sea Fluxes With a Focus on Heat and Momentum
JF - Frontiers in Marine Science
Y1 - 2019
A1 - Cronin, Meghan F.
A1 - Gentemann, Chelle L.
A1 - Edson, James
A1 - Ueki, Iwao
A1 - Bourassa, Mark
A1 - Brown, Shannon
A1 - Clayson, Carol Anne
A1 - Fairall, Chris W.
A1 - Farrar, J. Thomas
A1 - Gille, Sarah T.
A1 - Gulev, Sergey
A1 - Josey, Simon A.
A1 - Kato, Seiji
A1 - Katsumata, Masaki
A1 - Kent, Elizabeth
A1 - Krug, Marjolaine
A1 - Minnett, Peter J.
A1 - Parfitt, Rhys
A1 - Pinker, Rachel T.
A1 - Stackhouse, Paul W.
A1 - Swart, Sebastiaan
A1 - Tomita, Hiroyuki
A1 - Vandemark, Douglas
A1 - Weller, A. Robert
A1 - Yoneyama, Kunio
A1 - Yu, Lisan
A1 - Zhang, Dongxiao
KW - air-sea heat flux
KW - autonomous surface vehicle
KW - ICOADS
KW - latent heat flux
KW - ocean wind stress
KW - OceanSITES
KW - satellite-based ocean monitoring system
KW - surface radiation
AB - Turbulent and radiative exchanges of heat between the ocean and atmosphere (hereafter heat fluxes), ocean surface wind stress, and state variables used to estimate them, are Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) and Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) influencing weather and climate. This paper describes an observational strategy for producing 3-hourly, 25-km (and an aspirational goal of hourly at 10-km) heat flux and wind stress fields over the global, ice-free ocean with breakthrough 1-day random uncertainty of 15 W m–2 and a bias of less than 5 W m–2. At present this accuracy target is met only for OceanSITES reference station moorings and research vessels (RVs) that follow best practices. To meet these targets globally, in the next decade, satellite-based observations must be optimized for boundary layer measurements of air temperature, humidity, sea surface temperature, and ocean wind stress. In order to tune and validate these satellite measurements, a complementary global in situ flux array, built around an expanded OceanSITES network of time series reference station moorings, is also needed. The array would include 500–1000 measurement platforms, including autonomous surface vehicles, moored and drifting buoys, RVs, the existing OceanSITES network of 22 flux sites, and new OceanSITES expanded in 19 key regions. This array would be globally distributed, with 1–3 measurement platforms in each nominal 10° by 10° box. These improved moisture and temperature profiles and surface data, if assimilated into Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, would lead to better representation of cloud formation processes, improving state variables and surface radiative and turbulent fluxes from these models. The in situ flux array provides globally distributed measurements and metrics for satellite algorithm development, product validation, and for improving satellite-based, NWP and blended flux products. In addition, some of these flux platforms will also measure direct turbulent fluxes, which can be used to improve algorithms for computation of air-sea exchange of heat and momentum in flux products and models. With these improved air-sea fluxes, the ocean’s influence on the atmosphere will be better quantified and lead to improved long-term weather forecasts, seasonal-interannual-decadal climate predictions, and regional climate projections.
VL - 6
UR - https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmars.2019.00430
U1 - Global Irminger
U2 -
ER -