A breakthrough in the two-way coupling within a wave-current-atmosphere system

Introduction

The Wave-Current-Atmosphere (WCA) system in the upper ocean is an air-sea interface that drives the physical, chemical, and biological processes crucial to our global climate and environment. Observations and simulations over the last two decades have revolutionized our picture of the roles of small-scale wave processes in the large-scale oceanic circulations controlled by the WCA system, offering a promising direction to correcting long-standing biases and errors in key indicators in climate models, such as sea surface temperature and the mixed depth of vertical mixing.

Key Challenges

The key to correcting such biases and errors is to physically resolve the surface wave processes in the WCA system. OceanCoupling will effect a paradigm shift towards two-way coupled modeling of the system using a novel approach which removes a bottleneck caused by two main challenges:

1. Multi-scale dependent physical processes
2. The air-sea interface - known for its dynamics and complexity

This approach harnesses both the analytical features of multi-scale quantities and the rapid development in computing power to greatly increase numerical efficiency, at no cost of accuracy.

Objectives

OceanCoupling will explain, for the first time, how the surface wave processes control the essential exchange of mass, momentum, and energy between the atmosphere and ocean. The outcome of OceanCoupling will provide timely links to recent and future ocean surface remote sensing products that monitor the ocean surface and will equip us with a feasible tool to tackle the ever-increasing wave extremes due to climate changes and innovative technologies for renewable energy.

Implications

OceanCoupling initiates a new way of efficiently modeling complex systems with multiple scales, enabling breakthroughs in similar physical systems. Technically, the main outcomes, e.g., theoretical framework and numerical solver with open access, will create opportunities for novel insights due to their wide applicability in fluid dynamics.