AI21A:
Surface Currents in a Coupled Air-Sea System: Physics and Applications I


Session ID#: 36667

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:  Thomas Kilpatrick, UCSD, San Diego, CA, United States and Mark A Bourassa, Florida State University, Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Tallahassee, FL, United States
Student Paper Review Liaisons:  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
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:

Characterizing Submesoscale Ocean Currents using a Doppler Scatterometer (323485)
Ernesto Rodriguez, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, Alexander Grant Wineteer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States and Dragana Perkovic-Martin, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Simultaneous Measurements of Winds and Currents from DopplerScatt: A Look at How Wind is Affected by the Ocean Surface (325573)
Alexander Grant Wineteer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, Ernesto Rodriguez, JPL/NASA/Caltech, Pasadena, CA, United States, Dragana Perkovic-Martin, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, Los Angeles, CA, United States and Bryan W Stiles, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States
Observations of the vertical profile of currents in the upper meter of the ocean. (306568)
Brian K Haus, University of Miami, RSMAS, Miami, FL, United States, Nathan Laxague, Columbia University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Division of Ocean and Climate Physics, Palisades, NY, United States and CARTHE-SPLASH experiment team
Measurements of the Upper Surface Current Profile (318219)
Jochen Horstmann1, Ruben Carrasco1, Michael Stresser1, Marc P Buckley2 and Marius Cysewski1, (1)Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht Centre for Materials and Coastal Research, Geesthacht, Germany, (2)Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Institute of Coastal Research, Geesthacht, Germany
Near-surface Current Profiles Measured with the new ‘HR’ Mode of Signature1000 Instruments Mounted on SWIFT Drifters (308851)
Sven Nylund, Nortek AS, Rud, Norway and Jim Thomson, Applied Physics Laboratory University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
Three-way coupling of surface currents, waves, and wind stress over the Gulf Stream (318057)
Qi Shi, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, United States and Mark A Bourassa, Florida State Univ, Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Tallahassee, FL, United States
Surface Wave Effects on Ocean Currents and Transport in Tropical Cyclones and Winter Storms in the Gulf of Mexico (326979)
Milan Curcic, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States and Shuyi S. Chen, University of Washington Seattle Campus, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Seattle, WA, United States
Langmuir turbulence observations during CASPER-East experiment (305639)
Ivan B. Savelyev, US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, United States, David Miller, Naval Research Lab DC, Washington, DC, United States, Geoffrey B Smith, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, United States, Qing Wang, Naval Postgraduate School, Department of Meteorology, Monterey, CA, United States, Robert Kipp Shearman, Oregon State University, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Corvallis, OR, United States, Mark A Sletten, Naval Research Lab, Washington, DC, United States, Adam J Christman, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, United States, Tony de Paolo, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, United States and Dana K Savidge, Skidaway Inst Oceanography, Savannah, GA, United States

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