Sea spray at extremely high wind speeds: generation mechanisms, contribution to atmosphere-ocean interactions, and role in sea hurricane dynamics
Yu. I. Troitskaya1, D. A. Sergeev1,2, O. S. Ermakova1, A. N. Zotova1, M. I. Vdovin1
1Institute of Applied Physics RAS, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
2Lobachevsky University, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Keywords: sea storm, multiphase environments, spray, heat and momentum fluxes
Abstract
The presented research has made progress in describing sea spray and understanding the associated processes in terms of its physical properties, as well as the resulting fluxes from the ocean to the atmosphere, its influence on the development of ocean storms, and related problems and issues. The main results were obtained during laboratory experiments on wind-wave channels using high-speed photography. Descriptions of studies related to the identification of the dominant type of spray generation (the "bag-breakup" type) and the statistics of these phenomena in a wide range of conditions depending on the wind-wave Reynolds number characterizing small-scale processes are given. Convolution of this statistics with the droplet size distribution from a single phenomenon of spray generation of the specified type, obtained from data from a special experiment, yields the spray generation function.
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