Journal
ANNUAL REVIEW OF FLUID MECHANICS
Volume 42, Issue -, Pages 19-42Publisher
ANNUAL REVIEWS
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-fluid-121108-145541
Keywords
boundary layer; Langmuir turbulence; wave breaking; large-eddy simulation; air-sea interaction; hurricane
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Funding
- Office of Naval Research
- National Science Foundation
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We discuss the coupling processes between surface gravity waves and adjacent winds and currents in turbulent boundary layers. These processes mediate exchanges of momentum, beat, and gases between the atmosphere and ocean and thus are of global significance for climate. Surface waves grow primarily by pressure-form stress from airflow over the waveforms, and they dissipate in the open sea by wave breaking that injects and stirs momentum, energy, and bubbles into the ocean. Wave motions pump wind eddies that control fluxes across the lower atmosphere. Flow separation occurs behind steep wave crests, and at high winds the crests flatten into spume, which diminishes the drag coefficient. In the ocean the Lagrangian-mean wave velocity, Stokes drift, induces a vortex force and material transport. These generate Langmuir circulations penetrating throughout the boundary layer and enhancing entrainment at the stratified interior interface in combination with other turbulent eddies and inertial-shear instability.
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