Atmospheric response to sea-surface temperature variabilty

Spatial variations of the turbulent fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum are examined in the context of sea-surface temperature heterogeneity using LongEZ aircraft measurements at 10 m above the sea surface collected in the pilot program of the Coupled Boundary Layers Air-Sea Transfer (CBLAST) Weak Wind Experiment. The atmospheric response to sea-surface temperature heterogeneity is related to the characteristic spatial scale and amplitude of the heterogeneity and to the boundary-layer mixing regime. For unstable conditions associated with cooler air over warmer water, the 10-m fluxes typically respond strongly to changes in sea-surface temperature. However, for stable conditions associated with warm air advected over cooler water, the response at 10 m is sometimes much weaker. The measurement level may be too high to estimate surface fluxes in these stable marine boundary layers due to partial decoupling between the 10-m level and the surface.