Hyodae Seo

Offshore wind farms may induce changes in the upper ocean and near-surface atmosphere through coupled ocean-atmosphere feedbacks. Yet, the role of air-sea interactions mediated by offshore wind farms remains poorly understood. Using fully coupled ocean-atmosphere-wave model simulations for seasonally stratified conditions along the US East Coast, we show that simulated cumulative reductions in wind stress due to large-scale wind farm clusters lead to sea surface warming of 0.3° to 0.4°C and a shallower mixed layer. This warming drives upward heat fluxes, destabilizing the atmospheric boundary layer and enhancing wind stress, which partially offsets wake-induced wind deficits. These wake-ocean interactions influence near-surface meteorology and air-sea fluxes, suggesting that a coupled modeling approach may be necessary for assessing potential oceanographic impacts of offshore wind developments. However, ocean coupling exerts limited influence on winds at turbine-relevant heights or within downstream wakes, resulting in minimal impact on long-term energy. These findings suggest that models without ocean coupling may be adequate for wind energy applications.

Large-scale offshore wind farms are expected to influence surface waves by modifying local wind forcing through wake effects. We use regional coupled ocean–atmosphere–wave model simulations to investigate a realistic large-scale offshore wind development scenario in the northeastern U.S. during boreal summer. Near-surface wind speeds are reduced by 10% over lease areas and within downstream wake regions, leading to decreases in significant wave height (3%) and wave-supported momentum flux (30%). This further leads to reductions in surface roughness length (16%) and near-surface ocean turbulent kinetic energy (20%). Spectral analysis shows a clear reduction in wind-sea energy, indicating suppressed local wind-wave growth near the farms. Weaker winds favor the development of longer-period waves, increasing dominant wave phase speed by 3% and suggesting a transition to an older sea state. Modern bulk flux algorithms often parameterize surface roughness using inverse wave age and/or wave slope. This raises the question of whether wake-driven reductions in inverse wave age and wave height impact air–sea momentum exchange. To assess this, we compare fully coupled simulations with an atmosphere-only run excluding wave coupling. Results show that about one-third of the reduction in roughness length can be attributed to sea state changes, while two-thirds result from lower friction velocity due to lower wind speeds. However, the impact of sea state on the drag coefficient and momentum flux is negligible (~1%), suggesting that wake-induced wind speed reductions are the primary driver, with sea state changes playing a secondary role.

This study investigates the impact of sea spray parameterization on typhoon prediction in the Yellow and East China Seas (YECS) region. Using an air-sea-wave coupled model, we evaluate changes due to sea spray effects in the simulated intensity and structure of Typhoons Lingling (2019) and Maysak (2020). Enabling sea spray effect enhances surface turbulent heat fluxes considerably around the typhoon centers (74% increase for Lingling, 92% for Maysak), leading to a better representation of typhoon intensification phases. Analysis of thermodynamic processes reveals that sea spray-induced warming emerges before rapid intensification, with enhanced temperature and moisture profiles throughout the troposphere supporting stronger secondary circulation. As a result, key aspects of typhoon prediction exhibit significant improvements: root-mean-squared errors decreased by 63% in minimum central pressure and 60% for maximum wind speed in the case of Maysak. The results demonstrate that sea spray effects are strongly modulated by sub-surface ocean conditions, with a greater surface heat flux enhancement for Maysak that moved along warmer Kuroshio and Tsushima currents than for Lingling which passed over Yellow Sea Bottom Cold Water. Our findings demonstrate the significant potential to improve typhoon predictions in the YECS region by incorporating sea spray effects.

Atmospheric fronts embedded in extratropical cyclones are high‐impact weather phenomena, contributing significantly to mid‐latitude winter precipitation. The three vital characteristics of the atmospheric fronts, high wind speeds, abrupt change in wind direction, and rapid translation, force the induced surface waves to be misaligned with winds exclusively behind the cold fronts. The effects of the misaligned waves under atmospheric cold fronts on air‐sea fluxes remain undocumented. Using the multi‐year in situ near‐surface observations and direct covariance flux measurements from the Pioneer Array off the coast of New England, we find that the majority of the passing cold fronts generate misaligned waves behind the cold front. Once generated, the waves remain misaligned, on average, for about 8 hr. The parameterized effect of misaligned waves in a fully coupled model significantly increases the roughness length (185%), drag coefficient (19%), and air‐sea momentum flux (11%). The increased surface drag reduces the wind speeds in the surface layer. The upward turbulent heat flux is weakly decreased by the misaligned waves because of the decrease in temperature and humidity scaling parameters being greater than the increase in friction velocity. The misaligned wave effect is not accurately represented in a commonly used wave‐based bulk flux algorithm. Yet, considering this effect in the current formulation improves the overall accuracy of parameterized momentum flux estimates. The results imply that better representing a directional wind‐wave coupling in the bulk formula of the numerical models may help improve the air‐sea interaction simulations under the passing atmospheric fronts in the mid‐latitudes.

Atmospheric fronts embedded in extratropical cyclones are high-impact weather phenomena, contributing significantly to midlatitude winter precipitation. The three vital characteristics of the atmospheric fronts, high wind speeds, abrupt change in wind direction, and rapid translation, force the induced surface waves to be misaligned with winds exclusively behind the cold fronts. The effects of the misaligned waves on air-sea fluxes remain undocumented. Using the multi-year in situ near-surface observations and direct covariance flux measurements from the Pioneer Array off the coast of New England, we find that the majority of the passing cold fronts generate misaligned waves behind the cold front. Once generated, the waves remain misaligned, on average, for about 8 hours. The fully-coupled model simulations indicate that the misaligned waves significantly increase wave roughness length (300%), drag coefficient (30%), and momentum flux (20%). The increased surface drag reduces the wind speeds in the surface layer. The upward turbulent heat flux is weakly decreased by the misaligned waves because of the compensating effect between the decrease in temperature and humidity scaling parameters and the increase in friction velocity. The misaligned wave effect is not accurately represented in a commonly used wave-based bulk flux algorithm. Yet, the suggested modification to the current formulation improves the overall accuracy of parameterized momentum flux estimates. The results imply that better representing a directional wind-wave coupling in the bulk formula of the numerical models may help improve the air-sea interaction simulations under the passing atmospheric fronts in the midlatitudes.

Two decades of high-resolution satellite observations and climate modeling studies have indicated strong ocean–atmosphere coupled feedback mediated by ocean mesoscale processes, including semipermanent and meandrous SST fronts, mesoscale eddies, and filaments. The air–sea exchanges in latent heat, sensible heat, momentum, and carbon dioxide associated with this so-called mesoscale air–sea interaction are robust near the major western boundary currents, Southern Ocean fronts, and equatorial and coastal upwelling zones, but they are also ubiquitous over the global oceans wherever ocean mesoscale processes are active. Current theories, informed by rapidly advancing observational and modeling capabilities, have established the importance of mesoscale and frontal-scale air–sea interaction processes for understanding large-scale ocean circulation, biogeochemistry, and weather and climate variability. However, numerous challenges remain to accurately diagnose, observe, and simulate mesoscale air–sea interaction to quantify its impacts on large-scale processes. This article provides a comprehensive review of key aspects pertinent to mesoscale air–sea interaction, synthesizes current understanding with remaining gaps and uncertainties, and provides recommendations on theoretical, observational, and modeling strategies for future air–sea interaction research. Significance Statement: Recent high-resolution satellite observations and climate models have shown a significant impact of coupled ocean–atmosphere interactions mediated by small-scale (mesoscale) ocean processes, including ocean eddies and fronts, on Earth’s climate. Ocean mesoscale-induced spatial temperature and current variability modulate the air–sea exchanges in heat, momentum, and mass (e.g., gases such as water vapor and carbon dioxide), altering coupled boundary layer processes. Studies suggest that skillful simulations and predictions of ocean circulation, biogeochemistry, and weather events and climate variability depend on accurate representation of the eddy-mediated air–sea interaction. However, numerous challenges remain in accurately diagnosing, observing, and simulating mesoscale air–sea interaction to quantify its large-scale impacts. This article synthesizes the latest understanding of mesoscale air–sea interaction, identifies remaining gaps and uncertainties, and provides recommendations on strategies for future ocean–weather–climate research.

In winter, the Northwest Tropical Atlantic Ocean can be characterized by various wave age‐based interactions among ocean current, surface wind and surface waves, which are critical for accurately describing surface wind stress. In this work, coupled wave‐ocean‐atmosphere model simulations are conducted using two different wave roughness parameterizations within COARE3.5, including one that relies solely on wind speed and another that uses wave age and wave slope as inputs. Comparisons with the directly measured momentum fluxes during the ATOMIC/EUREC⁴A experiments in winter 2020 show that, for sea states dominated by short wind waves under moderate to strong winds, the wave‐based formulation (WBF) increases the surface roughness length in average by 25% compared to the wind‐speed‐based approach. For sea states dominated by remotely generated swells under moderate to strong wind intensity, the WBF predicts significantly lower roughness length and surface stress (≈15%), resulting in increased near‐surface wind speed above the constant flux layer (≈5%). Further investigation of the mixed sea states in the model and data indicates that the impact of swell on wind stress is over‐emphasized in the COARE3.5 WBF, especially under moderate wind regimes. Various approaches are explored to alleviate this deficiency by either introducing directional alignment between wind and waves or using the mean wave period instead of the wave period corresponding to the spectral peak to compute the wave age. The findings of this study are likely to be site‐dependent, and mostly concern specific regimes of wind and waves where the original parameterization was deficient.

The rainfall over the U.S. West Coast is known to be highly influenced by large‐scale atmospheric circulation and tropical climate teleconnections. However, the role of North Pacific oceanic variability is less understood. Using high‐resolution regional atmospheric model simulations forced by sustained positive and negative phases of the extratropical Pacific Decadal Oscillation sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTa), we diagnose the precipitation changes over the U.S. West Coast during 2010–2020. We find that precipitation anomalies are up to 60% stronger (weaker) for the warm (cold) cases, especially over Northern and Central California during wintertime, and Baja California in the summertime. In both seasons, precipitation is predominantly modulated through changes in the water vapor flux, which are directed toward the coast in wintertime and away from the coast during summertime. These flux anomalies are primarily driven by large‐scale changes in the wind associated with the atmospheric adjustment to the strong ocean SSTa.