2020 Articles
The impact of rain on ocean surface waves and currents
Precipitation is an important component of the interaction between Earth's atmosphere and oceans, modifying air-sea fluxes of momentum, heat, and gas. It has been hypothesized that rain's suppression of ocean surface gravity waves and centimeter-scale wave enhancement should alter the nature of air-sea momentum flux, resulting in increased near-surface current. Here, we use field observations to describe this impact and measure the very near-surface current response to rainfall. During heavy rain, surface-roughening ring waves were generated and longer gravity waves were suppressed; immediately following, the magnitude of the near-surface current increased in response to wind forcing but died as the rain subsided and long waves recovered. These first-of-their-kind field observations indicate that rain reduces ocean wave form drag in favor of tangential stress, resulting in the acceleration of current near the sea surface.
Subjects
Files
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2020GL087287.pdf application/pdf 6.43 MB Download File
Also Published In
- Title
- Geophysical Research Letters
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087287
More About This Work
- Academic Units
- Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
- Ocean and Climate Physics
- Published Here
- January 10, 2022