Collaborative Research: Investigations of Wind-Driven Exchange and Long-Wave Modulation of Surface Fluxes Under Strong Wind Conditions Using OOI Data

海洋观测倡议（OOI）是由美国国家科学基金会（NSF）开发的，目的是在各种各样的地点提供连续的测量，以便前所未有地进入世界海洋和海洋大气环境。OOI的一个主要主题是海洋-大气交换，这在OOI规划期间被确定为“对提高风暴预报和气候变化模型的预测能力至关重要”。该项目将使OOI直流通量系泊站在中至强风条件下的通量、波浪和洋流获得新的有质量控制和连续的大风测量，这些数据将为评估这些预测模型打开新的窗口，并为OOI先锋、耐力和全球站点正在进行和未来的过程研究提供支持。该项目将利用这些观测结果来提高我们对大气、表面波场和海底海洋之间相互作用的详细理解，以及测试、改进和验证参数化，这些参数化估计了至关重要的风应力作为其他更容易观测或建模的参数的函数。预计这项研究将产生更广泛的影响，包括对高中生的STEM培训，OOI研究基础设施的增强，以及学术界、工业界和联邦机构之间的伙伴关系的加强。这些目标将通过参与WHOI计划来实现，该计划旨在为高中学生开发海洋学高级顶点课程，专门开展OOI通量数据开发活动，以支持使用这些平台进行更广泛的科学调查，并向更广泛的研究界提供广泛寻求的大风条件现场测量数据集，包括风应力和浮力通量。这项研究将调查在中等到极端风速下驱动波浪和洋流的湍流动量交换。本项目的主要目标是：(1)验证和/或改进将中至高风速动量通量参数化的整体海气通量算法，以减少由于15-25米/秒范围内测量稀缺而导致的不确定性；(2)利用OOI定向波谱数据和高速率共谱通量估算，开展过程研究，研究风波反馈机制，解决波龄、波陡度和方向差异（例如，风、波和应力场之间的差异）的影响；(3)利用这些调查结果的总和来验证LES和几个预报中心的数值风浪模拟活动中使用的地表通量的现有参数化。该研究有望推进阻力系数参数化的评价和改进，并基于物理参数和从连续OOI测量中获得的见解探索新的参数化。这些参数化的改进是发展海波大气耦合模式的关键组成部分。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Ocean Observatory Initiative (OOI) has been developed by NSF to provide continuous measurements at a wide variety of locations for unprecedented access to the world's oceans and marine atmospheric environment. A major theme of the OOI is Ocean-Atmosphere Exchange, which was identified during OOI planning as "critical to improving the predictive capabilities of storm forecasting and climate-change models." This project will allow access to new quality-controlled and continuous high-wind measurement of fluxes, waves and ocean currents at the OOI DC flux moorings under moderate to high wind conditions - data that should open new windows for evaluation of these forecast models as well as support for ongoing and future process studies at the OOI Pioneer, Endurance and Global sites. This project will take advantage of these observations to improve our detailed understanding of the interaction between the atmosphere, the surface wave field, and the underlying ocean, as well as to test, improve and validate parameterizations which estimate the critically important wind stress as a function of other, more easily observed or modeled parameters. Expected broader impacts from this research include STEM training of high school students, an enhancement to the OOI research infrastructure, and increased partnerships between academia, industry and federal agencies. These will be achieved through participation in a WHOI program aimed at developing a senior-level capstone course in Oceanography for high school students, dedicated OOI flux data development activities to support expanded science investigation using these platforms, and provision to the broader research community of widely sought after high-wind condition field measurement datasets including wind stress and buoyancy flux. This research will investigate the turbulent exchange of momentum that drives waves and currents at moderate to extreme wind speeds. The primary objectives of this project are (1) validate and/or improve bulk air-sea flux algorithms that parameterize the momentum flux at moderate to high wind speeds to reduce the uncertainty resulting from the scarcity of measurements in the 15-25 m/s range; (2) conduct process studies to investigate wind-wave feedback mechanisms that address the impact of wave-age, wave-steepness and directional differences (e.g., between the wind, wave and stress fields) using OOI directional wave spectral data and high-rate co-spectral flux estimates; and (3) use the sum of these investigations to test existing parameterizations of surface fluxes being employed in LES and numerical wind and wave modeling activities at several forecast centers. This study is expected to advance the evaluation and improvement of drag coefficient parameterizations and explore new ones based on physical arguments and insights gained from the continuous OOI measurements. The improvement of these parameterizations is a crucial component in the development of coupled ocean-wave-atmosphere models.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.