Identification

Title

Air-sea enthalpy and momentum exchange at major hurricane wind speeds observed during CBLAST

Abstract

Quantifying air-sea exchanges of enthalpy and momentum is important for understanding and skillfully predicting tropical cyclone intensity, but the magnitude of the corresponding wind speed-dependent bulk exchange coefficients is largely unknown at major hurricane wind speeds greater than 50 m s⁻¹. Since direct turbulent flux measurements in these conditions are extremely difficult, the momentum and enthalpy fluxes were deduced via absolute angular momentum and total energy budgets. An error analysis of the methodology was performed to quantify and mitigate potentially significant uncertainties resulting from unresolved budget terms and observational errors. An analysis of six missions from the 2003 Coupled Boundary Layers Air-Sea Transfer (CBLAST) field program in major hurricanes Fabian and Isabel was conducted using a new variational technique. The analysis indicates a near-surface mean drag coefficient CD of 2.4 × 10⁻³ with a 46% standard deviation and a mean enthalpy coefficient CK of 1.0 × 10⁻³ with a 40% standard deviation for wind speeds between 52 and 72 m s⁻¹. These are the first known estimates of CK and the ratio of enthalpy to drag coefficient CK/CD in major hurricanes. The results suggest that there is no significant change in the magnitude of the bulk exchange coefficients estimated at minimal hurricane wind speeds, and that the ratio CK/CD does not significantly increase for wind speeds greater than 50 m s⁻¹.

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document

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http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7th8nhc

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eng

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geoscientificInformation

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publication

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2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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publication

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2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2012 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

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OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

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pointOfContact

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