Parabolic dependence of the drag coefficient on wind speed from aircraft eddy-covariance measurements over the tropical Eastern Pacific

Abstract

AbstractIn this study, we examine and present the relationship between drag coefficient and wind speed. We used an observational dataset that consists of 806 estimates of the mean flow and fluxes from aircraft eddy-covariance measurements over the tropical Eastern Pacific. To estimate the saturated wind speed threshold, we regressed the drag coefficients for wind speed scope from 10 ms−1 to 28 ms−1. Results show that the relationship between drag coefficient and wind speed is parabolic. Additionally, the saturated wind speed threshold is 22.33 ms−1 when regressed from drag coefficient, and it is 22.65 ms−1 when regressed from the medium number of drag coefficient for each bin.