Wind-Wave Effects on Gas Transfer

Gas transfer through a wind-disturbed air-water interface is described. The boundary layers above and below the interface are treated separately since resistance to gas transfer is often concentrated in one layer or the other. It is argued that a classical shear turbulence approach to the atmospheric boundary layer is appropriate, and a new mixing length model is shown to yield excellent agreement with laboratory data over wide ranges of Prandtl and roughness Reynolds numbers. In the field, modifications to the classical approach are required to account for the effects of waves. By contrast the subsurface turbulence produced by wave breaking cannot be handled using classical shear turbulence methods. A new theory is presented which focusses on the turbulent patches created by wave-breaking and demonstrates the importance of including the effects of wave breaking in calculating gas transfer through the liquid phase under conditions of active wave generation.

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