Skip to main content
European Commission logo print header

Breaking waves and air-sea gas transfer

Deliverables

Summary: Detailed investigations on the relations between wave breaking parameters, wind stress and the water surface have resulted in parameterizations for wave breaking and the influence of breaking waves on air-sea gas transfer. The observed existence of a large zone of constant slope at the rear or breaking wind waves may have implications for predicting microwave scattering from the sea surface and may provide a way to detect wave breaking by remote sensing. However, these laboratory findings need verification in the field. The investigations on the gas transfer rates lead to the conclusion that bubble-mediated transfer is the most significant mechanism associated with breaking waves, although for soluble gases disruption by surfacing bubble plumes and the turbulence generated by wave breaking will be relatively important. These considerations has resulted in new formulations of the gas transfer rates that account for the physical properties of each gas. The transfer velocity can be parameterized in terms of friction velocity, wave breaking activity and interfacial resistance. New methods and instrumentation have been developed for measurement of bubbles and bubble plumes. The instrumentation has also been deployed at open sea. Analysis of laboratory bubble plume measurements lead to characterization of bubble plume characteristics and life cycle. An advanced method was developed to measure wave slope characteristics. The IRPHE wind wave interaction tunnel was characterized for gas transfer measurement and detailed methods have been worked out that can also be applied in future experiments.

Searching for OpenAIRE data...

There was an error trying to search data from OpenAIRE

No results available