David K. Woolf

Variability and predictability of the North Atlantic wave climate

Wave climate across the ocean basins can be described using satellite altimetry; here, we concentrate on the North Atlantic region. Waves in the North Atlantic are strongly seasonal and peak in the winter season. The northeastern sector of the Atlantic and adjoining shelf seas also exhibit exceptionally high interannual variability in the winter, with monthly average significant wave height varying by up to a factor of 2 from one year to the next. The strength and geographical distribution of variability is broadly consistent throughout the winter months (December–March). A large fraction of these wave height anomalies is associated with a single pattern of pressure anomalies that resembles the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). A predictor based on NAO dependence is “trained” from relatively recent satellite data and then tested against earlier satellite and in situ data. The predictor is successful in large areas of the North Atlantic, confirming a robust relationship between wave height anomalies and the NAO over the last few decades. A substantial rise (up to 0.6 m) in monthly mean wave heights on the northeastern Atlantic during the latter part of the twentieth century is attributable to changes in the NAO. Substantial residual anomalies in wave heights exist after the influence of the NAO has been subtracted; these are partly explained by a second pair of North Atlantic patterns in wave height anomalies and sea level pressure anomalies. This “East Atlantic” pattern is particularly influential in midwinter and affects the southern part of the northeastern sector (including the region of Seven Stones Light Vessel)

Bubbles and the air‐sea transfer velocity of gases

Abstract The exchange of gases between the atmosphere and the oceans may occur directly through the sea surface and indirectly through the mediation of additional transient reservoirs: the bubbles injected into the upper ocean by breaking waves. These bubbles both will increase the gross rate of exchange between air and sea and will tend to force a supersaturation of the upper ocean. These two effects are made explicit by writing the equation for the net air‐sea flux of a gas as F = (K0 + Kb)[C — Sp(1 + ?)], where Kb is the contribution of bubbles to the transfer velocity (gross exchange rate) and ? denotes the supersaturation effect. Significant supersaturations can be attributed to the small (≤150‐μm radius) bubbles, which are commonly advected several metres below the sea surface (Woolf and Thorpe, 1991). The values of Kb attributable to this deep flux of bubbles are negligible for most gases, but much greater values are predicted by considering the total flux of bubbles through the sea surface. The co...

The influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation on sea-level variability in the North Atlantic region

Satellite altimeter (Topex/Poseidon, 1992–2001) and tide-gauge measurements are used to explore the relationship of the sea level of the North Atlantic and neighbouring seas and coastlines to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Altimeter measurements suggest significant gyre-scale influence of the NAO in the North Atlantic, but also stronger influences on the continental shelf and inland seas of Europe. A north–south dipole in sea-level anomaly consistent with a hydrostatic response to the NAO sea-level pres- sure dipole is evident, but there are also large non-hydrostatic effects. The strongest response on the European Shelf is in the southeastern part of the North Sea where sea level is positively correlated to NAO Index. The sea level in two semi-enclosed seas, the Baltic Sea positively and the Mediterranean Sea negatively, is also strongly influenced by the NAO. A weak negative correlation is apparent around the northeastern coastline of North America. These features are confirmed by contemporary coastal tide-gauge data, but the tide-gauge data also show that the influence of the NAO was weaker early in the Twentieth Century (20C) on parts of the Northwest European coastline. Inter-annual sea-level variability associated with fluctuations in the NAO are generally much larger than those associated with secular trends. Inferred multi-decadal fluctuations associated with the NAO are very substantial compared to the 15(35) cm estimated for 20C global sea-level rise (Church, J.A., Gregory, J.M., Huybrechts, P., Kuhn, M., Lambeck, K., Nhuan, M.T., Qin, D. and Woodworth, P.L. (2001). Changes in sea level. Chapter 11 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report, pp. 639–694. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.) and scenario forecasts for the 21C (350 cm). Therefore, the behaviour of the NAO in the next few decades will be a major regional factor in sea-level rise and coastal vulnerability in some European regions.

Towards a vulnerability assessment of the UK and northern European coasts: the role of regional climate variability

Within the framework of a Tyndall Centre research project, sea level and wave changes around the UK and in the North Sea have been analysed. This paper integrates the results of this project. Many aspects of the contribution of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) to sea level and wave height have been resolved. The NAO is a major forcing parameter for sea-level variability. Strong positive response to increasing NAO was observed in the shallow parts of the North Sea, while slightly negative response was found in the southwest part of the UK. The cause of the strong positive response is mainly the increased westerly winds. The NAO increase during the last decades has affected both the mean sea level and the extreme sea levels in the North Sea. The derived spatial distribution of the NAO-related variability of sea level allows the development of scenarios for future sea level and wave height in the region. Because the response of sea level to the NAO is found to be variable in time across all frequency bands, there is some inherent uncertainty in the use of the empirical relationships to develop scenarios of future sea level. Nevertheless, as it remains uncertain whether the multi-decadal NAO variability is related to climate change, the use of the empirical relationships in developing scenarios is justified. The resulting scenarios demonstrate: (i) that the use of regional estimates of sea level increase the projected range of sea-level change by 50% and (ii) that the contribution of the NAO to winter sea-level variability increases the range of uncertainty by a further 10–20 cm. On the assumption that the general circulation models have some skill in simulating the future NAO change, then the NAO contribution to sea-level change around the UK is expected to be very small (<4 cm) by 2080. Wave heights are also sensitive to the NAO changes, especially in the western coasts of the UK. Under the same scenarios for future NAO changes, the projected significant wave-height changes in the northeast Atlantic will exceed 0.4 m. In addition, wave-direction changes of around 20° per unit NAO index have been documented for one location. Such changes raise the possibility of consequential alteration of coastal erosion.

Assessment of the reliability of wave observations from Voluntary Observing Ships: insights from the validation of a global wind wave climatology based on Voluntary Observing Ship data

This paper describes development and validation of a global climatology of basic wave parameters based on the voluntary observing ship (VOS) data from the Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set collection. Climatology covers the period 1958–1997 and presents heights and periods for the wind sea, swell, and significant wave height (SWH) over the global ocean on 2° × 2° spatial resolution. Significant wave height has been derived from separate sea and swell estimates by taking square root of the sum of squares for the seas and swells propagating approximately in the same direction and assuming SWH to be equal to the higher of the two components in all other cases. Special algorithms of corrections were applied to minimize some biases, inherent in visual wave data. Particularly, we corrected overestimation of small seas, corrected underestimation of periods, and analyzed separation between sea and swell. Validation included estimation of random observational errors, observation of sampling errors, and comparison with the alternative wave data. Estimates of random observational errors show that for the majority of locations, observational uncertainties are within 20% of mean values, which allows us to discuss quantitatively the produced climatology. Biases associated with inadequate sampling were quantified using the data from high-resolution WAM hindcast for the period 1979–1993. The highest sampling biases are observed in the South Ocean, where wave height may be underestimated by 1–1.5 m because of poor sampling, primarily associated with a fair weather bias of ship routing and observation. Comparison to the other VOS-based products shows in general higher SWH in our climatology, especially in the midlatitudes. However, comparison with the altimeter data shows that even for well-sampled regions, high waves are still underestimated in VOS, suggesting a ubiquitous fair weather bias. Further ways of improving VOS-based wave climatologies and possible applications are discussed.

Waves and climate change in the north‐east Atlantic

Wave height in the North Atlantic has been observed to increase over the last quarter-century, based on monthly-mean data derived from observations. Empirical models have linked a large part of this increase in wave height with the North Atlantic Oscillation. Wave models provide a tool to study impacts of various climate change scenarios and investigate physical explanations of statistical results. In this case we use a wave model of the NE Atlantic. Model tests were carried out, using synthetic wind fields, varying the strength of the prevailing westerly winds and the frequency and intensity of storms, the location of storm tracks and the storm propagation speed. The strength of the westerly winds is most effective at increasing mean and maximum monthly wave height. The frequency, intensity, track and speed of storms have little effect on the mean wave height but intensity, track and speed significantly affect maximum wave height.

Parameterizations and Algorithms for Oceanic Whitecap Coverage

Shipboard measurements of fractional whitecap coverage W and wind speed at 10-m height, obtained during the 2006 Marine Aerosol Production (MAP) campaign, have been combined with ECMWF wave model and Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) satellite wind speed data for assessment of existing W parameterizations. The wind history trend found in an earlier study of the MAP data could be associated with wave development on whitecapping, as previously postulated. Whitecapping was shown to be mainly wind driven; forhighwindspeeds(. 9ms 21 ),aminorreductionin thescatterofinsituWdatapointscouldbeachievedby including sea state conditions or by using parameters related to wave breaking. The W values were slightly larger for decreasing wind/developed waves than for increasing wind/developing waves, whereas cross-swell conditions (deflection angle between wind and swell waves between 6458 and 61358) appeared to dampen whitecapping.Tabulatedcurvefittingresultsofthedifferentparameterizationsshowthattheerrorsthatcould not be attributed to the propagation of the standard error in U10 remained largely unexplained. It is possible that the counteracting effects of wave development and cross swell undermine the performance of the simple parameterizations in this study.

Influence of energetic wind and waves on gas transfer in a large wind–wave tunnel facility

Air–water gas exchange experiments were carried out in a large wind wave tunnel in Marseille, France, to investigate gas transfer processes under energetic wind and wave fields, where macroscale breaking waves create bubble plumes (white caps) and turbulence on the water surface. We measured the gas transfer velocities of N2O, DMS, He, SF6, CH3Br, and total air. Their diffusivity and solubility span a large range, allowing us to investigate gas transfer mechanisms under a variety of physical conditions. We observed that the gas transfer velocities varied with friction velocity in a linear manner. Gas transfer in the presence of pure wind waves is generally consistent with the surface renewal model, as the gas transfer velocity has a strong dependence on diffusivity with an exponent of 0.53(±0.02). Contrary to expectations, the bubble plumes generated by breaking waves contributed relatively little in our pure wind wave experiments. Superposition of mechanically generated waves onto the wind waves in the high wind regime attenuated DMS gas transfer (as a function of friction velocity) across the air–water interface by ~20% compared with gas transfer under pure wind waves, implying suppression of gas transfer directly across the sheared water surface. Greater transfer of less soluble gases may result from bubble-mediated gas transfer.

Some Factors Affecting the Size Distributions of Oceanic Bubbles

Abstract The effects of water temperature, dissolved gas saturation levels, and particulate concentrations on the size distribution of subsurface bubbles are investigated using numerical models. The input of bubbles, either at a constant rate in a “steady-state” model or in an initial injection where the development of a bubble “plume” is followed, is kept constant. So too are the model representations of Langmuir circulation and turbulence. An increase in temperature results in a reduction of bubble numbers, a halving at 4-m depth for a 10°C rise in temperature, while an increase in saturation level of 10% increases the bubble concentrations by factors of 3 to 4 at the same depth; the shape of the distribution curves are only slightly modified. The presence of particulates tends to increase the number of small bubbles by inhibiting dissolution.

Transfer Across the Air-Sea Interface

The efficiency of transfer of gases and particles across the air-sea interface is controlled by several physical, biological and chemical processes in the atmosphere and water which are described here (including waves, large- and small-scale turbulence, bubbles, sea spray, rain and surface films). For a deeper understanding of relevant transport mechanisms, several models have been developed, ranging from conceptual models to numerical models. Most frequently the transfer is described by various functional dependencies of the wind speed, but more detailed descriptions need additional information. The study of gas transfer mechanisms uses a variety of experimental methods ranging from laboratory studies to carbon budgets, mass balance methods, micrometeorological techniques and thermographic techniques. Different methods resolve the transfer at different scales of time and space; this is important to take into account when comparing different results. Air-sea transfer is relevant in a wide range of applications, for example, local and regional fluxes, global models, remote sensing and computations of global inventories. The sensitivity of global models to the description of transfer velocity is limited; it is however likely that the formulations are more important when the resolution increases and other processes in models are improved. For global flux estimates using inventories or remote sensing products the accuracy of the transfer formulation as well as the accuracy of the wind field is crucial.