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Modification Of Turbulence At The Air-Sea Interface Due To The Presence Of Surfactants And Implications For Gas Exchange. Part Ii: Numerical Simulations, Silvia Matt, Atsushi Fujimara, Alexander Soloviev, Shin Hyung Rhee

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Books and Book Chapters

We conducted high-resolution non-hydrostatic numerical simulations to study the effect of surfactants on near-surface turbulence. Laboratory experiments at the UM RSMAS ASIST facility presented in a companion paper report a reduction of turbulence below the air-sea interface and an increase of the surface drift velocity in the presence of surfactants. We implement the effect of surfactants as a rheological, viscoelastic boundary condition at the surface. Our numerical experiments are consistent with the results of the laboratory experiments. We also simulated the effect of surfactants on the temperature difference across the thermal molecular sublayer (cool skin) and on gas transfer velocity. …