This project estimates surface latent and sensible fluxes and wind stress using available in situ observations in the Arctic during the past 50 years. Data sources are from conventional platform of ships and buoys and new observing technologies such as saildrones. For more information and availability, go to saildrones and ships.

The fluxes were calculated using bulk algorithm COARE version 3.6 (Fairall et al. 2003), updated with observations to adapt to high wind (Edson et al. 2013) and sea-ice conditions (Andreas 1987).

Project Team: Chidong Zhang, Dongxiao Zhang, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin Wood

Funding Agency: NOAA Climate Program Office, Climate Observations and Monitoring Program

References

Edson, J.B., Jampana, V., Weller, R.A., Bigorre, S.P., Plueddemann, A.J., Fairall, C.W., Miller, S.D., Mahrt, L., Vickers, D. and Hersbach, H., 2013. On the exchange of momentum over the open ocean. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 43(8), pp.1589-1610.

Fairall, C.W., Bradley, E.F., Hare, J.E., Grachev, A.A. and Edson, J.B., 2003. Bulk parameterization of air–sea fluxes: Updates and verification for the COARE algorithm. Journal of climate, 16(4), pp.571-591.

Andreas, E.L., 1987. A theory for the scalar roughness and the scalar transfer coefficients over snow and sea ice. Boundary-Layer Meteorology, 38(1-2), pp.159-184.