EGU2020-7481
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-7481
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Filed observations of spray production function during Tropical Cyclones Olwyn and Veronica

Alexander Babanin1, Hongyu Ma1,2, Xingkun Xu1, and Fangli Qiao2
Alexander Babanin et al.
  • 1The University of Melbourne, Melbourne School of Engineering, Dept of Infrastructure Engineering, Melbourne, Australia (a.babanin@unimelb.edu.au)
  • 2First Institute of Oceanography, China

Spray produced in Tropical Cyclones affects the dynamic and heat fluxes between the atmosphere and ocean, and thus can influence the Cyclone intensity in a number of ways. Measurements of the Sea Spray Generation Function (SSGF) in situ, however, are extremely challenging and correspondingly rare, and uncertainties in quantifying SSGF reach 1000 times.

In the presentation, measurements of the total volume of spray by means of a laser array in Tropical Cyclones Olwyn (2015) and Veronica (2019) in the Indian Ocean will be reported. They are used to develop a parameterisation of SSGF at wind speeds ranging from light to extreme. It is argued that the spray is produced by wind-over-the-waves, and therefore wave properties are also accounted for in the parameterisation.

How to cite: Babanin, A., Ma, H., Xu, X., and Qiao, F.: Filed observations of spray production function during Tropical Cyclones Olwyn and Veronica, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-7481, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-7481, 2020.