Abstract:

Owing to the complexity of atmospheric turbulence and the limitation of direct observation method, it is difficult to obtain the atmospheric turbulence in marine surface layer in large spatial and temporal scale. The indirect way by using meteorology factors to estimate the strength of atmospheric turbulence in marine surface with large spatial and temporal scale is an optional method. The relationship between the strength of surface turbulence and the meteorology factors (fluctuations of temperature, wind speed (vertical) and humidity) are based on the empiristic expression offered by Friehe et al. The method is applied to the district of South China Sea(10°N~ 21°N, 110°E ~120°E), based on the data from 1965 to 1997. The data consists of water temperature, air temperature at height z, water vapor density adjacent to the sea surface and average water vapor density at height z, the average wind speed is also included to estimate the atmospheric turbulence in typical marine surface layer. It turns out that the range of mean turbulence is from 10-17 to 10-14, there are significant seasonal changes of atmospheric turbulence in marine surface layer of South China Sea, in general turbulence is much stronger in winter than it in summer, and the discrimination of atmospheric turbulence between seacoast and mare liberum seems not significantly.

Key words: marine atmospheric turbulence, routine meteorology factors, South China Sea, marine surface layer