Modeling of the eddy viscosity by breaking waves

Breaking wave induced nearsurface turbulence has important consequences for many physical and biochemical processes including water column and nutrients mixing,heat and gases exchange across air-sea interface.The energy loss from wave breaking and the bubble plume penetration depth are estimated.As a consequence,the vertical distribution of the turbulent kinetic energy(TKE),the TKE dissipation rate and the eddy viscosity induced by wave breaking are also provided.It is indicated that model results are found to be consistent with the observational evidence that most TKE generated by wave breaking is lost within a depth of a few meters near the sea surface.High turbulence level with intensities of eddy viscosity induced by breaking is nearly four orders larger than υwl(=κuwz),the value predicted for the wall layer scaling close to the surface,where uw is the friction velocity in water,κ with 0.4 is the von Kármán constant,and z is the water depth,and the strength of the eddy viscosity depends both on wind speed and sea state,and decays rapidly through the depth.This leads to the conclusion that the breaking wave induced vertical mixing is mainly limited to the near surface layer,well above the classical values expected from the similarity theory.Deeper down,however,the effects of wave breaking on the vertical mixing become less important.

Modeling of the eddy viscosity by breaking waves

Breaking wave induced nearsurface turbulence has important consequences for many physical and biochemical processes including water column and nutrients mixing, heat and gases exchange across air-sea interface. The energy loss from wave breaking and the bubble plume penetration depth are estimated. As a consequence, the vertical distribution of the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE), the TKE dissipation rate and the eddy viscosity induced by wave breaking are also provided. It is indicated that model results are found to be consistent with the observational evidence that most TKE generated by wave breaking is lost within a depth of a few meters near the sea surface. High turbulence level with intensities of eddy viscosity induced by breaking is nearly four orders larger than υwl(=κu *wz), the value predicted for the wall layer scaling close to the surface, where u *w is the friction velocity in water, κ with 0.4 is the von Kármán constant, and z is the water depth, and the strength of the eddy viscosity depends both on wind speed and sea state, and decays rapidly through the depth. This leads to the conclusion that the breaking wave induced vertical mixing is mainly limited to the near surface layer, well above the classical values expected from the similarity theory. Deeper down, however, the effects of wave breaking on the vertical mixing become less important.