Relationship between latent heat of sea spray and uncertainty of a meteorological field

Abstract

A surf zone with large breaking waves produces more spray than do offshore regions. Latent heat of spray evaporation causes change in the surrounding temperature and wind velocity, resulting in further alterations in temperature, wind velocity and heat flux. Spray in a surf zone with large breaking waves may have unignorable effect on determination of a local meteorological field because of this interconnected relationship as well as its higher population than in the open ocean. In this study, the effects of the spray latent heat on a meteorological field were investigated. The authors propose a method for estimating latent heat of spray vaporization over the ocean. The method was applied to a meso-scale meteorological model to perform numerical experiments with consideration of heat flux by spray. Although the contribution of heat flux on the ocean was as small as 2.5%, fluctuations of air temperature and wind velocity increased over time due to the effects of spray. The fluctuations are thought to cause uncertainty in weather prediction. Numerical experiments with spray provided predictions of air temperature and wind velocity near a coast line that were consistent with observational data, especially when the population of spray droplets increased by two orders of magnitude as is often observed in a coastal area.