HR: 1400h
AN: A23B-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Air-Sea Interaction in the Gulf of Tehuantepec
AU: * Khelif, D
EM: dkhelif@uci.edu
AF: University of California, Irvine, Dept of Mechanical Engineering, Irvine, CA 92697-3975, United States
AU: Friehe, C A
EM: cfriehe@uci.edu
AF: University of California, Irvine, Dept of Mechanical Engineering, Irvine, CA 92697-3975, United States
AU: Melville, W K
EM: kmelville@ucsd.edu
AF: Scripps Insitution of Oceanography, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093, United States
AB: Measurements of meteorological fields and turbulence were made during gap wind events in the Gulf of Tehuantepec using the NSF C-130 aircraft. The flight patterns started at the shore and progressed to approximately 300km offshore with low-level (30m) tracks, stacks and soundings. Parameterizations of the wind stress, sensible and latent heat fluxes were obtained from approximately 700 5 km low-level tracks. Structure of the marine boundary layer as it evolved off-shore was obtained with stack patterns, aircraft soundings and deployment of dropsondes. The air-sea fluxes approximately follow previous parameterizations with some evidence of the drag coefficient leveling out at about 20 meters/sec with the latent heat flux slightly increasing. The boundary layer starts at shore as a gap wind low-level jet, thins as the jet expands out over the gulf, exhibits a hydraulic jump, and then increases due to turbulent mixing.
DE: 3307 Boundary layer processes
DE: 4247 Marine meteorology
DE: 4504 Air/sea interactions (0312, 3339)
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly