Approximate Solutions of Spray-induced Stress and its Characteristic Analysis in High Winds

Abstract

Abstract A great number of spray droplets comprising liquid droplets produce in high winds, which may play a significant role in meteorological and oceanographical processes. In this study, the approximate solutions of the spray-induced stress are calculated based on three different sea-spray generation functions. It’s revealed that there is no evident difference among the calculated results in conditions of both the 10-m wind speed less than 18 m s− 1 and wave age less than 0.6. However, as wind enforces and waves develop, the sea-spray generation function fitted by the field observational data could make the calculated spray-induced stress much larger than the others. It’s also indicated that the wind speed more effectively determines the magnitude of the spray-induced stress compared with wave ages. Then, considering a super typhoon that occurred in the northwest Pacific Ocean, the calculation for the temporal and spatial characteristics of the spray-induced stress is conducted using the fifth-generation ECMWF (i.e., European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) reanalysis datasets. The results show that both the magnitude and gradient of the spray-induced stress near the cyclone centre reached the maximum during the super typhoon. At this moment, the spray-induced stress quickly decreased in the area far away from the cyclone centre. It’s also found that the spray-induced stress could reduce the air-turbulent stress for 10-m wind speeds exceeding 18 m s− 1.