Study of mass transfer at the air-water interface by an isotopic method

Abstract

The calculation of the evaporation flux is based on certain assumptions concerning processes in the vicinity of the air-water interface. Most of the recently proposed evaporation theories differ mainly in the estimated contributions of molecular and turbulent mass transfer in the vapor phase just above the liquid surface. This paper will show that, by analyzing the hydrogen and oxygen stable isotope distribution in liquid and water vapor, the processes taking place on a very small scale near the liquid can be investigated. The effect of molecular mass transfer is directly obtained without having to perform difficult measurements in the air in the immediate vicinity of the water surface. Experiments are carried out in the Institut de Mécanique Statistique de la Turbulence air-water tunnel specially designed for the simulation of ocean-atmosphere energy exchanges. The wind velocities vary from 0.7 to 7 m/s. The experimental results obtained do not support the classical Reynolds analogy between momentum and mass transfer down to the interface and the theory proposed by Sheppard, but they are in agreement with Sverdrup's, Kitaigorodskiy and Volkov's, and Brutsaert's theories, all of which involve a layer just above the air-water interface through which mass transfer is dominated by molecular diffusion. The thickness of this layer in the two first theories is shown to decrease with increasing wind velocity. Direct application of Brutsaert's theory for roughness Reynolds numbers smaller than 1 is in good agreement with our experimental data.