Wind Profile in the Wave Boundary Layer and Its Application in a Coupled Atmosphere‐Wave Model

Abstract

Current models cannot capture well the impacts of wind waves on the atmospheric boundary layer. Here, we proposed a new turbulence closure model to estimate the wind stress in the wave boundary layer from viscous stress, shear‐induced turbulent stress, wind‐sea induced stress, and swell‐induced upward stress separately. The misalignment between the wind stress and wind is also considered in the model. Single‐column simulations indicate that (a) the swell‐induced upward momentum flux increases the surface wind and changes the wind direction, (b) the misalignment between the upward momentum flux and wind has a more significant impact on the wind profile than that from the downward momentum flux, and (c) the impact of swell‐induced upward momentum flux decreases with atmospheric convection. The proposed closure scheme was implemented into an atmosphere‐wave coupled model. A month‐long simulation over the ocean off California shows that the surface wind can be altered up to 5% by ocean surface gravity waves.

Ocean Waves in Large‐Scale Air‐Sea Weather and Climate Systems

“…From this coupled model, it was noticed that the ocean‐side stress can differ significantly from the air‐side stress and their ratio decreases with increasing inverse wave age (Qiao et al., 2021). 30‐year wave hindcast data were used to investigate the redistribution of air‐sea momentum flux by waves (Wu et al., 2022), and showed a similar result. Due to limitations of the model in capturing the impact of wind waves in the atmospheric boundary layer, they proposed a new turbulence closure scheme, including the wind‐sea induced stress and the misalignment between the wind stress and the wind (Wu & Qiao, 2022), and showed that the surface wind can be altered by ocean surface waves by up to 5%.…”