A New Sea Spray Generation Function for Wind Speeds up to 32 m s21

The sea spray generation function quantifies the rate at which spray droplets of a given size are produced at the sea surface. As such, it is important in studies of the marine aerosol and its optical properties and in understanding the role that sea spray plays in transferring heat and moisture across the air–sea interface. The emphasis here is on this latter topic, where uncertainty over the spray generation function, especially in high winds, is a major obstacle. This paper surveys the spray generation functions available in the literature and, on theoretical grounds, focuses on one by M. H. Smith et al. that has some desirable properties but does not cover a wide enough droplet size range to be immediately useful for quantifying spray heat transfer. With reasonable modifications and extrapolations, however, the paper casts the Smith function into a new form that can be used to predict the production of sea spray droplets with radii from 2 to 500 mm for 10-m winds from 0 to 32.5 m s21. The paper closes with sample calculations of the sensible and latent heat fluxes carried by spray that are based on this new spray generation function.