Air-sea interaction and climate

Abstract

Air--sea interaction (ASI) is a large-scale natural phenomenon of paramount importance both in the very existence of the ocean and in many of its processes. ASI also includes the processes of heat and moisture supply to the atmosphere (mainly in the form of latent heat of evaporation and evaporated moisture) which create the atmospheric phenomena having the greatest energy concentration -hurricanes and typhoons -and long-term weather and climate anomalies. It is usual to distinguish between small-scale (local) and large-scale (global) ASI processes. The local ASI includes in the first place the exchanges of momentum, heat and moisture through the ocean surface; important but somewhat lesser components are the exchange of gases (primarily carbon dioxide and oxygen), the transfer of sea salt from the ocean to the atmosphere, and the precipitation of aerosol from the atmosphere into the ocean. Quantitative descriptions of these processes are given by the coefficients of momentum transfer C~, heat exchange Cq and evaporation C~. These were introduced for the first time by Shuleikin (1928) and are defined by the equations: