HR: 0800h
AN: OS21B-1525    [Abstracts]
TI: Airborne Video Observations of Wave Breaking Statistics
AU: * Kleiss, J
EM: jkleiss@ucsd.edu
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Dr. MC0213, La Jolla, CA 92093-0213
AU: Romero, L
EM: leromero@ucsd.edu
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Dr. MC0213, La Jolla, CA 92093-0213
AU: Melville, W K
EM: melville@mpl.ucsd.edu
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Dr. MC0213, La Jolla, CA 92093-0213
AB: Wave breaking is the dominant source of energy dissipation in deep water surface waves, as well as an important agent in aerosol production and air-sea exchange of momentum, heat, and gases. A better understanding of the statistics of breaking waves is important for improving models of wind waves and air-sea fluxes and their remote sensing across the electromagnetic spectrum. Airborne video observations of breaking wave occurrence and kinematics were made during the Gulf of Tehuantepec Experiment (GOTEX) in February 2004. A nadir-looking mega-pixel video camera, along with a scanning lidar (Airborne Terrain Mapper) on the NSF/NCAR C130 recorded digital videos of breaking at the sea surface and corresponding sea surface displacement during strong (10-25m/s), steady off-shore winds over fetches from 0 to 500km. We present observations of the statistics of surface waves and wave breaking.
DE: 0480 Remote sensing
DE: 0540 Image processing
DE: 4504 Air/sea interactions (0312, 3339)
DE: 4560 Surface waves and tides (1222)
DE: 4572 Upper ocean and mixed layer processes
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005