Molecular sublayers beneath the air-sea interface relative to momentum, heat and gas transports

Abstract

Numerical simulations of the wind-driven aqueous turbulent flow and the underlying heat and dissolved gas transports are conducted with sufficiently fine grid resolution to resolve the molecular sublayers immediately beneath the air-water interface. The simulated mean distributions of velocity, temperature and gas concentration all exhibit exponential profiles across the sublayers in accordance with the theoretical postulation of Liu and Businger [1975] which they derived on the basis of the conceptual surface renewal model. The numerical results identify two major coherent renewal processes within the flow: intermittent upwellings induced by uprising horseshoe-like eddies in the well-mixed region, and elongated, high-speed, cool streaks within the sublayer reflecting the cool-skin thermal structure.