Air-Sea Interactions

C. Fairall

Clouds, Radiation, and Surface Processes Division, ETL

The CRSP division at ETL has been conducting a long term effort in improving parameterizations of surface fluxes and boundary-layer processes for input to numerical models.

Examples:

*Development and continued improvement in the COARE bulk turbulent flux algorithm. This model is used in numerous research-grade mesoscale models and in a number of field programs for verification of NCEP flux fields over the ocean. A related derivative verrsion (Zeng et al.) is used operationally by NCEP.

*Development of a sea spray droplet evaporation parameterization for fluxes in hurricanes. Ongoing work is coordinated with the USWRP and efforts at NOAA/HRD.

*A large effort in improving parameterizations of clouds and their radiative impact at the surface (ocean and arctic). We have acquire years of data over the ocean and arctic icecap. These data have been used in numerous studies of operational NWP radiative flux fields.

Future work:

*Development of an 'operational' version (streamlined code) of the COARE flux algorithm. Contacted by Fedor Mesinger at NCEP for possible future collaboration.

*Airborne studies of sea spray and other fluxes in hurricanes.

*Routine measurements of air-sea fluxes and cloud properties from 2 NOAA research vessels. This will allow compilation of a large data base with more global coverage.