Wintertime boundary-layer structure and air-sea interaction over the Japan/East Sea

The wintertime meteorology over the Japan/East Sea (JES) is characterized by episodic strong northwesterly winds known as “cold-air outbreaks” resulting from the incursion of dry and cold air masses from the Eurasian continent. These were found by previous studies (mostly based on indirect methods) to greatly enhance the air-sea interaction and, in particular an area about 150 km in diameter off Vladivostok was identified as the Flux Center. Aircraft in situ measurements of turbulent fluxes and mean meteorological variables were made during the winter 2000. The existence and location of the Flux Center were confirmed although the turbulent sensible and latent-heat fluxes were not as high as previously found due to the air temperature being several degrees warmer. However, the stress was found to be significantly larger as a result of higher wind speeds. The internal boundary layer was found to grow linearly with the square root of offshore fetch, with a growth rate of 2.49m1/2 for an intense cold-air outbreak and 2.06m1/2 for a moderate one. A persistent initial decrease in the inversion height was observed at 41.86∘N,132.6∘E and may be attributable to the fanning out of the jet flow out of the Vladivostok gap as it expands onto the open ocean. The radiometric skin sea-surface temperature in the Flux Center exhibited large variability in the 0-4 °C range and was positively correlated with the total turbulent (latent+sensible) heat loss. Meteorological variables and surface fluxes results from Naval Research Laboratory Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) model compared reasonably, while the predictions of the internal boundary layer height were markedly lower than the observations.