Impact of sea spray on air-sea fluxes. Part II: Feedback effects

Abstract

This paper presents estimations for the transfer of momentum, heat, and water mass between the air and the sea. The results from Lagrangian stochastic simulations of sea spray drops (see Part I), along with two sea spray generation functions, are used to calculate the spray-mediated flux components of the air-sea fluxes. When the spray-mediated fluxes constitute a significant fraction of the total fluxes under certain conditions, their feedback effect on the atmosphere cannot be neglected. The authors derive a simplified feedback model to investigate such cases, finding that the spray-mediated fluxes may be especially sensitive to the size distribution of the drops. The total effective air-sea fluxes lead to drag and enthalpy coefficients that increase modestly with wind speed. The rate of increase for the drag coefficient is greatest at moderate wind speeds, while the rate of increase for the enthalpy coefficient is greatest at higher wind speeds where the spray is ubiquitous.