Massel S.R. Ocean Waves Breaking and Marine Aerosol Fluxes

Atmospheric and Oceanographic Sciences Library, vol. 38. Springer, Berlin, New York, 2007, 330 pp. - ISBN13: 978-0-387-36638-8
The atmosphere and the ocean form a coupled system which exchanges heat, momentum and water at the air–sea interface. The interface is dynamic and masses and energy are continually transferred across the air–sea interface. The energy flow from the atmosphere to the ocean generates an aerodynamically rough sea surface. If the energy flow is sufficiently intense, at some points the surface waves will lose their stability and eventually break. Breaking is a very localized and non-stationary phenomenon that is a source of vorticity and turbulence. Dissipated energy becomes available for mixing the water layers and for whitecapping of various scales. Whitecapping is a strongly nonlinear process, which involves instability of the surface waves with space and time scales several orders of magnitude smaller than those associated with gravity wave motion. Whitecaps are usually formed at or near the crests of the larger waves and occur in groups with successive crests breaking downwind of one another.Basic processes near the air–sea interface.
Mechanics of steep and breaking waves.
Spectral and statistical properties of ocean waves.
Experimental insights into mechanisms of wave breaking.
Wave breaking criteria and probability of breaking.
Energy dissipation due to wave breaking.
Whitecap coverage of the sea surface.
Fundamentals of marine aerosols.
Marine aerosol fluxes.
Aerosol flux as a function of sea state parameters.
Seasonal dependence of aerosol fluxes in the Baltic Sea.
Appendixes.Symbols and Notations.
Author Index.
Subject Index.