MEASUREMENTS OF SENSIBLE AND LATENT-HEAT FLUX IN THE WESTERN EQUATORIAL PACIFIC-OCEAN

Micrometeorological measurements, including direct eddy-correlation measurements of heat and moisture fluxes, have been made from shipboard under light-wind conditions in the western equatorial Pacific warm pool. Air-sea temperature differences were typically 1.5-degrees-2-degrees-C, that is, 1-degrees-1.5-degrees-C larger than long-term averages from merchant ship data. A sea surface "cool skin" of about 0.3-degrees-C was observed. Bulk transfer coefficients for both fluxes agree well with the predictions of Liu et al. (1979) in the convective wind speed regime below 4 m s-1. Between 4 and 6 m s-,1 values of the neutral exchange coefficients were C(EN) = 0.89 x 10(-3); C(HN) = 1.03 x 10(-3); C(DN) = 1.16 x 10(-3). At zero mean wind speed, latent heat flux is maintained at about 25 W m-2 by convective exchange. Inertial dissipation estimates of the latent heat flux are about 20% lower than the directly measured eddy-correlation values below 4 m s-1.