Evidence of spray-mediated air-sea enthalpy flux within tropical cyclones

The current study has two aims: first, to provide an estimate of surface enthalpy fluxes obtained from dropsonde data and second, to provide evidence of spray-mediated enthalpy transfer.

These are accomplished first by assuming that Monin-Obukhov similarity is satisfied throughout the bottom 100 m of the high-wind boundary layer, then by focusing on the enthalpy flux HK rather than its transfer coefficient CK. The scaling of HKwith wind speed in observational data sets reveals similarities to spray-mediated fluxes predicted by a newly developed surface flux model, in contrast with measurements made in a laboratory setting.