INFRARED REMOTE-SENSING OF BREAKING WAVES

ENERGY dissipation due to deep-water wave breaking plays a critical ro le in the development and evolution of the ocean surface wave field. F urthermore, the energy lost by the wave held via the breaking process is a source for turbulent mixing and air entrainment, which enhance ah -sea heat and gas transfer(1-3). But the current lack of reliable meth ods for measuring energy dissipation associated with wave breaking inh ibits the quantitative study of processes occurring at ocean surfaces, and represents a major impediment to the improvement of global wave-p rediction models(4). Here we present a method for remotely quantifying wave-breaking dynamics which uses an infrared imager to measure the t emperature changes associated with the disruption and recovery of the surface thermal boundary layer (skin layer). Although our present resu lts focus on quantifying energy dissipation-in particular, we show tha t the recovery rate of the skin layer in the wakes of breaking waves i s correlated with the energy dissipation rate-future applications of t his technique should help to elucidate the nature of important small-s cale surface processes contributing to air-sea heat(5) and gas(6) flux , and lead to a fuller understanding of general of ocean-atmosphere in teractions.