High Wind Upper Ocean Mixing with Explicit Surface Wave Processes

The work described here supports the Office of Naval Research Departmental Research Initiative (DRI) for research on the “Impact of Typhoons on the Western Pacific Ocean” (ITOP). The theme of the DRI is to better characterize and predict the ocean boundary layer (OBL) and its impact on typhoon (hurricane) evolution. This is one component of developing improved pre­ diction models for the coupled atmosphere-ocean-wave system. Cooling of the sea surface tem­ perature (SST) is a critical coupling variable influencing atmosphere-ocean hurricane dynamics; SST is largely determined by OBL turbulence, surface wave processes, and mixed layer entrain­ ment. Our research goal is to model the strongly forced wind and wave driven upper OBL using turbulence resolving large-eddy simulation (LES) with explicit wave effects, viz., wave-current interactions and breaking waves and examine their impact on ocean mixing during hurricane events.