theair-seainterfaceandsurfacestressundertropicalcyclones（theair-seainterfaceandsurfacestressundertropicalcyclones）.docVIP

The air-sea interface and surface stress under tropical cyclones: Supplementary information Alexander Soloviev1, 2, Roger Lukas3, Mark Donelan2, Brian Haus2, and Isaac Ginis4 KH instability at the air-sea interface and two-phase transition layer The acceleration of the air stream above a short KH wave induces a pressure drop1: . (S1) The pressure drop breaks up the interface if ?P exceeds the combined restoring force of gravity and surface tension: . (S2) Here: ?s is the surface tension, is the water density, is the air density, k is the wavenumber, g is the acceleration due to gravity, and length scale L is proportional to the wave amplitude. The interface breakup can occur under very high wind speed conditions2, 3. The KH mechanism is possible not only at a flat air-water interface but also in the more general case of the turbulent atmospheric boundary layer above the wavy sea surface. The oceanic atmospheric boundary layer is turbulent, and wind gusts interact with the waves. A stochastic parametric KH instability can develop at the air-sea interface in the presence of wind waves even when it is not possible for the averaged air-flow conditions. Direct disruption of the air-sea interface is a more effective mechanism for generation of the two-phase environment than large-scale wave breaking and whitecap production. Whitecap coverage is limited by only several percent even in hurricanes4. Stress due to the surface roughness introduced by two-phase transition layer is calculated as follows: where the drag coefficient is found from a transcendental equationS3: , ?is the von Kármán constant (), , m is a dimensionless proportionality coefficient (), is a dimensionless coefficient connecting the surface roughness length scale and the thickness of the transition layer (), is the air density, and is the acceleration due to gravity, h10 = 10 m. The thickness of the two-phase transition layer is then found from the equation3: . (S3)