Air-Sea Transfer of Momentum, Heat and Water Determined from Profile Measurements During BOMEX

Abstract

Abstract One hundred forty-one simultaneous wind speed, temperature and humidity profiles measured during the Barbados Oceanographic and Meteorological Experiment (BOMEX) are analyzed. The observations were from heights 2–11 m above MSL and were made from the R/V Flip, a research vessel specially designed to be stable at sea. The wind measurements are corrected for the interference of Flip's hull with the air flow. Evaporation estimates from the profiles are in fair agreement with simultaneous estimates by the eddy-correlation method. However, the heat fluxes estimated by the two methods are in poor agreement. There appear to be diurnal variations in air temperature, sea surface temperature and stress. The flux of latent heat is large, averaging 17 mW cm−2, while the flux of sensible heat is always upward and ∼1 mW cm−2.