Introduction and rationale

Abstract

Under moderate and extremely rough sea conditions the sea surface ceases to be a single-bounded surface with a distinct water-air boundary—an intermediate density zone arises, which represents a polydisperse mixture of finite volumes of air and water with a particular and highly fluctuating (in space and time) transition gradient. The existence of such a two-phase medium drastically changes both the character of how the two media interact (including energy exchange, gas exchange, heat exchange, mass exchange parameters), and the dynamic regime of a rough sea surface.