Air-Sea Latent Heat Flux Anomalies Induced by Oceanic Submesoscale Processes: An Observational Case Study

• DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2022.850207
• Publication Date: 2022-03-10T13:01:04Z
• Authors: Xiangzhou Song; Xuehan Xie; Bo Qiu; Haijin Cao; Shang-Ping Xie; Zhiqiang Chen; Weidong Yu
• Keywords: Anomaly (physics); Eddy; Ekman transport; Sea-surface height

The classical theory predicts that a geostrophically balanced mesoscale eddy can cause sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly related to Ekman pumping. Previous studies show an eddy-induced SST result in latent heat flux (LH) at maximum magnitude of ∼ O (10) Wm –2 , decaying radially outward from the center margin. In this study, we investigate LH anomalies associated with submesoscale processes within cyclonic for first time using recent satellite-ship-coordinated air-sea observations South China Sea. Unbalanced features be identified as fronts. Along ship track, strikingly decreases by 0.5°C horizontal distance ∼1.5 km and increases quickly 0.9°C spatial interval ∼3.6 km. along-track is decomposed into three parts: large-scale south-north fronts induced motions. Our analysis shows amplitude 12.3 while it 14.3 unbalanced mean (maximum) gradient 1.7 (75.7) –1 which approximately 1.5 times those (1.2 59.9 ) association eddies. spectra similar peaks ∼15 before sloping down power law between k –3 indicating underlying relationship variance processes.