Heat flux in the presence of sea surface swell

In the scientific community is an ongoing process of developing Earth System models to better describe the climate system, presently also wave models are introduced in atmosphere-ocean coupled models. It is, however, not fully understood how to introduce full effects of waves on the atmosphere and ocean. It is well known that surface gravity waves modulate the air-sea momentum transport and turbulence features in the atmosphere. Less is known concerning flux of heat, with increasing amount of measurements evidence have shown that there are surface wave-coherent components of sensible and latent heat fluxes. Surface waves can be separated into growing sea and swell waves with very different impact on air-sea interaction processes. By using a Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) code with a moving lower wavy surface (Sullivan et al., 2008) we study the organization of temperature fluctuations and heat fluxes. Correlation of vertical wind fluctuations and temperature fluctuations at the frequency of the wave indicate an impact of swell waves on heat flux, however not as significant as for momentum transport. LES- results are also linked to a detailed analysis of measurements taken at the marine micrometeorological field station Östergarnsholm in the Baltic Sea in northern Europe.