Sea spray volume flux estimation using joint statistics of wind and waves

Abstract

This article provides estimates of the sea spray volume flux using joint statistics of wind and waves. This is achieved by combining the sea spray volume flux parameterization proposed by Xu et al. (2021) with the joint statistics of wind and waves provided by Bitner-Gregersen (2015). Both the sea spray volume flux formula and the joint statistics of wind and waves represent conditions for wind waves from the North-West Shelf of Western Australia. The expected value and the variance of the sea spray volume flux for a range of realistic wind and wave conditions are presented, as well as an illustrative example. Comparison is also made with data from Xu et al. (2021) showing a reasonable agreement for the relevant subset of the data.