Validation of Two-Way Coupled Air-Sea Model Stress and Currents Through Remotely Sensed Winds and SST

The parameterization of surface stress in two-way coupled models, where changes in the ocean impact the atmosphere and vice versa, has been extremely difficult to verify. Prior to this work, it has been unclear what physical considerations where required in stress parameterization. Considering ocean currents in simple stress parameterizations has been found to cause unrealistically low production of oceanic eddy kinetic energy. Herein we show that also considering the dependency on sea state appears to resolve this problem. We also show that the relationship between ocean surface stress and the sea surface temperature gradient in western boundary currents is highly sensitive to the physics considered in this parameterization and to the surface current. Therefore it is possible to utilize remotely sensed winds and sea surface temperature evaluate the realism of the surface stress and currents in the coupled model.