Whitecapping plays an important role in many air-sea exchange and upper ocean processes.Traditionally,whitecap coverage is parameterized as a function of wind speed only.At present,the relative speed of ocean current to wind is considered to be important in the air-sea exchange parameterization which is the function of wind speed only.In this paper,the effects of ocean surface velocity (current velocity and wave induced velocity) and the wave parameters on whitecap coverage through relative speeds are investigated,by applying a 2-parameter whitecap coverage model to the Atlantic Ocean.It is found that the impacts of both current and wave on whitecap coverage are considerable in the most part of the Atlantic Ocean.It is interesting that the effect of wave is more significant than that of current.
The Cold Eddy in the East China Sea(CEECS) is located about 150 km southwest of Cheju Island.This region experiences a complex current system under the influences of the Yellow Sea Warm Current(YSWC),the Yellow Sea Coastal Current(YSCC),and the northward Kuroshio residual.To identify the strength of the CEECS,a simple subsurface intensity index is developed.Because the CEECS can be traced by temperature minimum,the intensity index is determined by the difference in sea temperature averaged across cores within and surrounding the region.Based on SODA,the CEECS subsurface intensity index time series can be calculated,with which the inter-annual variation of the CEECS is analyzed.
Although the annual global sea-air CO2 flux has been estimated extensively with various wind-dependent-k parameterizations,uncertainty still exists in the estimates. The sea-state-dependent-k parameterization is expected to improve the uncertainty existing in these estimates. In the present study,the annual global sea-air CO2 flux is estimated with the sea-state-dependent-k parameterization proposed by Woolf(2005) ,using NOAA/NCEP reanalysis wind speed and hindcast wave data from 1998 to 2006,and a new estimate,-2.18 Gt C year-1,is obtained,which is comparable with previous estimates with biochemical methods. It is interesting to note that the averaged value of previous estimates with various wind-dependent-k parameterizations is almost identical to that of previous estimates with biochemical methods by various authors,and that the new estimate is quite consistent with these averaged estimates.
