Molecular sublayers beneath the air-sea interface relative to momentum, heat and gas transports

Numerical simulations of the wind‐driven aqueous turbulent flow and the underlying heat and dissolved gas transports are conducted with sufficiently fine grid resolution to resolve the molecular sublayers immediately beneath the air‐water interface. The simulated mean distributions of velocity, temperature and gas concentration all exhibit exponential profiles across the sublayers in accordance with the theoretical postulation of Liu and Businger [1975] which they derived on the basis of the conceptual surface renewal model. The numerical results identify two major coherent renewal processes within the flow: intermittent upwellings induced by uprising horseshoe‐like eddies in the well‐mixed region, and elongated, high‐speed, cool streaks within the sublayer reflecting the cool‐skin thermal structure.