Surface Waves and Fluxes

During the Conference on Air-Sea Interaction in January 1986, it was suggested to me by David Larner of Reidel Press that it may be timely for an updated compendium of air-sea interaction theory to be organized, developed, and published. Many new results were emerging at the time, i.e., results from the MARSEN, MASEX, MILDEX, and TOWARD field projects (among others) were in the process of being reported and/or published. Further, a series of new experiments such as FASINEX and HEXOS were soon to be conducted in which new strides in our knowledge of air-sea fluxes would be made. During the year following the discussions with David Larner, it became apparent that many of the advances in air-sea interaction theory during the 1970s and 1980s were associated with sponsor investments in satellite oceanography and, in particular, remote sensing research. Since ocean surface remote sensing, e.g., scatterometry and SAR, requires intimate knowledge of ocean surface dynamics, advances in remote sensing capabilities required coordinated research in air-sea fluxes, wave state, scattering theory, sensor design, and data exploitation using environmental models. Based on this interplay of disciplines, it was decided that this book be devoted to air sea interaction and remote sensing as multi-disciplinary activities.