Atmosphere-ocean Interactions

The recent increase in levels of population and human development in coastal areas has led to a greater importance of understanding atmosphere-ocean interactions. Human activities that depend on the oceans require improvements in operational forecasts for marine weather and ocean conditions, and associated marine climate. This second volume on atmosphere-ocean interactions aims to present several of the key mechanisms that are important for the development of marine storms. The book consists of eight chapters, each presenting separate topics that are predominantly self-contained. The first five chapters are concerned with marine observations and understanding their parameterizations as they relate to atmosphere-ocean systems. The subsequent three chapters consider some of the implications of these parameterizations, as related to applications in coupled atmosphere, ocean, and wave model systems.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: On parameterizations of air-sea fluxes Introduction; Turbulent fluxes and the Monin-Obukhov similarity theory; Measuring turbulent fluxes; Field data; Momentum flux; Scalar fluxes; Discussion Chapter 2: Satellite-based observations of surface turbulent stress during severe weather Introduction; Satellite observations of surface winds; In situ data; Flux model; Comparisons with observations; Applications to scatterometry; Conclusions Chapter 3: Similarity and dissimilarity in air-sea momentum and CO2 transfers: the nondimensional transfer coefficients in light of the windsea Reynolds number Introduction; Present status of air-sea transfer coefficients; Wind-windsea equilibrium and nondimensional windsea boundary layer variables; Drag coefficient in light of the windsea Reynolds number; Nondimensional CO2 transfer velocity as a function of the windsea Reynolds number; Conclusions Chapter 4: Applications of synthetic aperture radar in marine meteorology Introduction; SAR image analysis in the study of marine meteorological phenomena; SAR-generated near-surface wind speed images; SAR meteorology: a historical perspective and a look into the future Chapter 5: Relationship between oceanic energy fluxes and surface winds during tropical cyclone passage Introduction; Observations; Vertical wavenumber spectra; Relationship to forcing structure; OML current simulations; Concluding remarks Chapter 6: Midlatitude storm impacts on air-sea CO2 fluxes Introduction; Model description; Case study: extratropical Hurricane Gustav; Air-sea gas transfer velocity; Gas transfer velocity and CO2 air-sea flux; Concluding remarks Chapter 7: Extratropical transition of tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic Introduction; A basic primer on TC formation and structure; Atlantic TC and ET climatology; Intraseasonal and interbasin variation in ET and proposed favorable environments; A typical Atlantic ET case study: Hurricane Floyd (1999); Operational definitions of ET onset and completion; Summary Chapter 8: Historical and possible future changes of wave heights in northern hemisphere oceans Introduction; Datasets and methodologies; Historical changes of wave heights; Climate change scenarios of wave heights; Concluding remarks