Air-Sea Interaction: Laws and Mechanisms provides a comprehensive account of how the atmosphere and the ocean interact to control the global climate, what physical laws govern this interaction, and what are its prominent mechanisms. Inrecent years, air-sea interaction has emerged as a subject in its own right, encompassing small- and large-scale processes in both air and sea. A novel feature of the book is the treatment of empirical laws of momentum, heat, and mass transfer, across the air-sea interface as well as across thermoclines, as laws of nonequilibrium thermodynamics, with focus on entropy production.
Thermodynamics also underlies the treatment of the overturning circulations of the atmosphere and the ocean. Highlights are thermodynamic cycles, the important function of “hot towers” in drying out of moist air, and oceanic heat transport from the tropics to polar regions. By developing its subject from basic physical (thermodynamic) principles, the book is broadly accessible to a wide audience.
The book is mainly directed toward graduate students and research scientists in meteorology, oceanography, and environmental engineering. The book also will be of value on entry level courses in meteorology and oceanography, and to the broader physics community interested in the treatment of transfer laws, and thermodynamics of the atmosphere and ocean.
Author(s): G. T. Csanady
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 0
Chapter 1 The Transfer Laws of the Air-Sea Interface 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Flux and Resistance 3
1.2.1 Momentum Transfer in Laminar Flow 4
1.3 Turbulent Flow Over the Sea 7
1.3.1 Turbulence, Eddies and Their Statistics 7
1.3.2 The Air-side Surface Layer 9
1.3.3 Properties of the Windsea 11
1.4 Flux and Force in Air-Sea Momentum Transfer 13
1.4.1 Charnock’s Law 14
1.4.2 Sea Surface Roughness 14
1.4.3 Energy Dissipation 15
1.4.4 Buoyancy and Turbulence 17
1.5 The Evidence on Momentum Transfer 21
1.5.1 Methods and Problems of Observation 21
1.5.2 The Verdict of the Evidence 22
1.5.3 Other Influences 25
1.6 Sensible and Latent Heat Transfer 28
1.6.1 Transfer of “Sensible” Heat by Conduction 29
1.6.2 Transfer of Water Substance by Diffusion 31
1.6.3 Heat and Vapor Transfer in Turbulent Flow 32
1.6.4 Buoyancy Flux Correction 35
1.6.5 Observed Heat and Vapor Transfer Laws 36
1.6.6 Matrix of Transfer Laws 40
1.6.7 Entropy Production 41
1.7 Air-Sea Gas Transfer 44
1.7.1 Gas Transfer in Turbulent Flow 45
1.7.2 Methods and Problems of Observation 46
1.7.3 The Evidence on Gas Transfer 48
Chapter 2 Wind Waves and the Mechanisms of Air-Sea Transfer 51
2.1 The Origin of Wind Waves 51
2.1.1 Instability Theory 54
2.1.2 Properties of Instability Waves 56
2.2 The Wind Wave Phenomenon 59
2.2.1 Wave Measures 62
2.2.2 Wave Growth 66
2.2.3 The Tail of the Characteristic Wave 71
2.2.4 Short Wind Waves 74
2.2.5 Laboratory Studies of Short Waves 76
2.3 The Breaking of Waves 81
2.3.1 Momentum Transfer in a Breaking Wave 82
2.4 Mechanisms of Scalar Property Transfer 86
2.4.1 Water-side Resistance 87
2.4.2 Air-side Resistance 90
2.5 Pathways of Air-Sea Momentum Transfer 92
Chapter 3 Mixed Layers in Contact 97
3.1 Mixed Layers, Thermoclines, and Hot Towers 97
3.2 Mixed Layer Turbulence 100
3.3 Laws of Entrainment 104
3.3.1 Entrainment in a Mixed Layer Heated from Below 105
3.3.2 Mixed Layer Cooled from Above 108
3.3.3 Shear and Breaker Induced Entrainment 110
3.4 A Tour of Mixed Layers 115
3.4.1 The Atmospheric Mixed Layer Under the Trade Inversion 116
3.4.2 Stratocumulus-topped Mixed Layers 120
3.4.3 Oceanic Mixed Layers 124
3.4.4 Equatorial Upwelling 129
3.5 Mixed Layer Interplay 132
3.5.1 Mixed Layer Budgets 133
3.5.2 Atmospheric Temperature and Humidity Budgets 136
3.5.3 Oceanic Temperature Budget 136
3.5.4 Combined Budgets 137
3.5.5 Bunker’s Air-Sea Interaction Cycles 140
Chapter 4 Hot Towers 146
4.1 Thermodynamics of Atmospheric Hot Towers 147
4.1.1 The Drying-out Process in Hot Towers 148
4.1.2 The Thermodynamic Cycle of the Overturning Circulation 152
4.2 Ascent of Moist Air in Hot Towers 158
4.2.1 Hot Tower Clusters 160
4.2.2 Squall Lines 164
4.3 Hurricanes 167
4.3.1 Entropy Sources in Hurricanes 172
4.3.2 Thermodynamic Cycle of Hurricanes 175
4.4 Oceanic Deep Convection 178
4.4.1 Observations of Oceanic Deep Convection 181
Chapter 5 The Ocean’s WarmWaterSphere 187
5.1 Oceanic Heat Gain and Loss 189
5.1.1 Mechanisms of Heat Gain 194
5.2 Oceanic Heat Transports 197
5.2.1 Direct Estimates of Heat Transports 198
5.2.2 Syntheses of Meteorological Data 199
5.3 Warm to Cold Water Conversion in the North Atlantic 204
5.3.1 Cold to Warm Water Conversion 205
5.4 The Ocean’s Overturning Circulation 208
5.4.1 The Role of the Tropical Atlantic 211
5.4.2 Heat Export from the Equatorial Atlantic 213
5.5 What Drives the Overturning Circulation? 216
5.5.1 CAPE Produced by Deep Convection 217
5.5.2 Density Flux and Pycnostads in the North Atlantic 219
References 225
Index 237
