Aircraft measurements of sea surface conditions and their relationship to marine boundary-layer dynamics

Abstract

Through simultaneous measurements, it is possible to demonstrate the relation between sea swell and surface temperature as measured by a thermoradiometer onboard an aircraft. Thermodynamic measurements made on board the aircraft enable analysis of the interaction between swell and surface marine layer dynamics. The cospectral functions of vertical turbulent transfer for sensible and latent heat indicate large-scale dynamic structures which would seem to be initiated by inhomogeneities in the humidity field. A cross-spectral examination of temperature and humidity produces a structure that is common to both parameters and is caused by swell propagation. The data used here were collected during the TOSCANE-T experiment, whose aim was to validate remote sensing scatterometer techniques, by means of an instrumented aircraft designed for atmospheric research. © 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers.