Effects of Sea Spray on Large-Scale Climatic Features over the Southern Ocean

Abstract

Abstract The Southern Ocean, characterized by strong westerly winds and a rough sea state, exhibits the most pronounced sea spray effects. Sea spray ejected by ocean surface waves enhances heat and water exchange at the air–sea interface. However, this process has not been considered in current climate models, and the influence of sea spray on the coupled air–sea system remains largely unknown. This study incorporated a parameterization of the sea spray influence on latent and sensible heat fluxes into the First Institute of Oceanography Earth System Model version 2.0 (FIO-ESM v2.0), a climate model coupled with an ocean surface waves component. The results indicate that the spray-mediated enthalpy flux accounted for over 20%–50% of the total value. Sea spray promoted ocean evaporation and heat transport, resulting in air and ocean surface cooling and strengthened westerly winds. Furthermore, a moist and stable atmosphere favored an increase in cloud fraction over the Southern Ocean, particularly low-level clouds. Increased clouds reflected downward shortwave radiation and reduced solar radiation absorption at the surface. At present, the climate models participating in phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) still suffer notable deficiencies in reasonably reproducing the climatological features of the Southern Ocean, including warm SST and underestimated clouds biases with more absorbed shortwave radiation. Our results suggest that consideration of sea spray effects is a feasible solution to mitigate these common biases and enhance the confidence in simulations and predictions with climate models.