AI24B:
Surface Currents in a Coupled Air-Sea System: Physics and Applications II Posters


Session ID#: 28727

Session Description:
Currents at the very surface of the ocean transport buoyant biological material including eggs and Sargassum, debris and contaminants such as oil, and fundamentally impact fluxes of momentum, heat and moisture across the air-sea interface. Though few observations have been made of currents at the very surface (within the upper few centimeters) of the ocean, it is understood that substantial shear can exist between the surface and depths of one to several meters deep, where most of the observations approximating the surface current are taken (e.g., from drifters with drogues, upward-looking ADCPs, or coastal radar). Not only is the velocity structure of the upper few meters poorly observed and its dynamics not fully described, but it is also unresolved in ocean models. As a consequence, for many applications involving numerical calculations of surface transport of biological materials and oil, crude parameterizations are often used to adjust ocean model currents to account for the unresolved vertical shear due to wind and waves. This multidisciplinary session invites contributions on the measurement and physics of surface currents and applications to biological and contaminant transport and air-sea fluxes modified by currents.
Primary Chair:  Mark A Bourassa, Florida State University, Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Tallahassee, FL, United States
Co-chairs:  Thomas Kilpatrick, UCSD, San Diego, CA, United States, J. Thomas Farrar, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, United States and Ernesto Rodriguez, JPL/NASA/Caltech, Pasadena, CA, United States
Moderators:  J. Thomas Farrar, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole, MA, United States and Mark A Bourassa, Florida State University, Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Tallahassee, FL, United States
Student Paper Review Liaison:  J. Thomas Farrar, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole, MA, United States
Index Terms:

4504 Air/sea interactions [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
4512 Currents [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
4522 ENSO [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
4546 Nearshore processes [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
Cross-Topics:
  • CD - Coastal Dynamics
  • IS - Ocean Observatories, Instrumentation and Sensing Technologies
  • OM - Ocean Modeling

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

Wave-Induced Doppler Shift of Ka-band Radar Signal Backscattered from the Sea Surface (308482)
Semyon Grodsky, University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD, United States, Yuri Yurovsky, Maryne HYdrophysical Institute, Russia, Vladimir Kudryavtsev, Russian State Hydrometeorological University, Russia and Bertrand Chapron, IFREMER, Laboratoire d'Oceanographie Physique et Spatiale (LOPS), Brest, France
Numerical Simulation of Phase-resolved Nonlinear Waves under Complex Ocean Current Conditions (309259)
Tianyi Li, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Minneapolis, MN, United States and Lian Shen, University of Minnesota, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Minneapolis, MN, United States
Material Dispersion in Oceanic Surface Boundary Layer (315766)
Junhong Liang, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, United States
Coupling waves with wind stress over the Gulf Stream (318015)
Mark A Bourassa, Florida State University, Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Tallahassee, FL, United States and Qi Shi, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, United States
Effects of Santa Ana winds on the profile of nearshore currents in Todos Santos Bay, Baja California (323026)
Angélica María Romero, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Instituto de Investigaciones Oceanológicas, Ensenada, Mexico, Amaia Ruiz De Alegria-Arzaburu, Univerisdad Autónoma de Baja California, Instituto de Investigaciones Oceanológicas, Ensenada, Mexico and David Rivas, CICESE, Biological Oceanography, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico

See more of: Air-Sea Interactions