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Abstract Recent field observations suggest that the air‐sea momentum flux (or the drag coefficient) is significantly reduced when the dominant wind‐forced surface waves are misaligned from local wind. Such conditions may occur under rapidly changing strong winds (such as under tropical cyclones) or in coastal shallow waters where waves are refracted by bottom topography. A recent Large Eddy Simulation (LES) study also shows that the drag coefficient is reduced by a misaligned strongly forced wave train (with a small wave age of 1.37). In order to investigate more realistic field conditions, this study employs LES to examine the effect of a misaligned (up to 90°) surface wave train over a wide range of wave age up to 10.95. For all wave ages examined, the drag coefficient is reduced compared to the flat surface condition when the misalignment angle exceeds around 22.5°–45°. The drag reduction may occur even if the form drag of the wave train is positive.
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Misaligned Wind‐Waves Behind Atmospheric Cold Fronts
Atmospheric fronts embedded in extratropical cyclones are high‐impact weather phenomena, contributing significantly to mid‐latitude winter precipitation. The three vital characteristics of the atmospheric fronts, high wind speeds, abrupt change in wind direction, and rapid translation, force the induced surface waves to be misaligned with winds exclusively behind the cold fronts. The effects of the misaligned waves under atmospheric cold fronts on air‐sea fluxes remain undocumented. Using the multi‐year in situ near‐surface observations and direct covariance flux measurements from the Pioneer Array off the coast of New England, we find that the majority of the passing cold fronts generate misaligned waves behind the cold front. Once generated, the waves remain misaligned, on average, for about 8 hr. The parameterized effect of misaligned waves in a fully coupled model significantly increases the roughness length (185%), drag coefficient (19%), and air‐sea momentum flux (11%). The increased surface drag reduces the wind speeds in the surface layer. The upward turbulent heat flux is weakly decreased by the misaligned waves because of the decrease in temperature and humidity scaling parameters being greater than the increase in friction velocity. The misaligned wave effect is not accurately represented in a commonly used wave‐based bulk flux algorithm. Yet, considering this effect in the current formulation improves the overall accuracy of parameterized momentum flux estimates. The results imply that better representing a directional wind‐wave coupling in the bulk formula of the numerical models may help improve the air‐sea interaction simulations under the passing atmospheric fronts in the mid‐latitudes.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2148120
- PAR ID:
- 10566974
- Publisher / Repository:
- Journal of Geophysical Research
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
- Volume:
- 129
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 2169-9275
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JC021162
