Ocean Waves in Large‐Scale Air‐Sea Weather and Climate Systems.

In spite of massive efforts directed to development of climate models over recent decades, accurate climate simulations and prediction remain a grand challenge. Large sea surface temperature model bias is one of the key indicators of the problem, among others. Qiao and his team suggested the concept of surface wave‐induced turbulence and elaborated the way for such coupling, through turbulent processes at both sides of the air‐ocean interface. These are the wave mixing in the ocean and wave modulation of air‐sea fluxes. This wave‐ocean coupled approach led to essential improvements of performance of ocean circulation and climate models, essentially introducing the next generation of large‐scale air‐sea interaction models. This Commentary reviews three recent JGR publications where the Qiao theory was implemented. The first paper (Huang & Qiao, 2021; https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JC016839) reported that the momentum gain by the ocean could be larger than the wind stress input, due to the ocean waves. The second paper (Chen et al., 2022; https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JC018360) demonstrated that, also due to waves, the drag coefficients in the atmospheric boundary layer have a spatial asymmetry during tropical cyclones. The third paper (Zhao et al., 2022; https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JC019015), based on combination of wave‐coupled effects on both sides of air‐sea interface, demonstrates their impact on simulation of tropical cyclone intensity. All papers are based on unique in situ measurements and their data analysis. The Commentary is further used as an opportunity to outline and review the current state of the small‐large scale coupling topic with respect to ocean, weather and climate modeling. Plain Language Summary: Understanding the nature of climate change and predicting its trends have been one of the highest priorities for scientific communities and of great importance for the public. Climate simulations, however, have been facing challenges which persist for decades, and apparently mean that some of the physical processes in their description are missing. A large set of such processes rest with the coupled nature of small‐ and large‐scale air‐sea interaction phenomena. Since the spatio‐temporal scales of surface waves, around 100 m and 10 s, are too far from those in the climate system, that is, thousands to tens thousands kilometers and years to decades, their coupling have never been incorporated by climate models due to lack of understanding of physics of such interactions and computing capabilities. Recent publications indicate that surface waves can both change the upper ocean through non‐breaking wave‐induced mixing and, on the atmospheric side, air‐sea fluxes through modulating the interface of ocean and atmosphere. As a result, ocean and climate predictions can be essentially improved by considering surface waves in climate models. The Commentary mainly discusses three recent papers dedicated to this topic. Key Points: This Commentary reviews three recent JGR publications dedicated to wave‐coupled approaches to large‐scale air‐sea systemsThis wave‐ocean coupled approach led to essential improvements of performance of ocean circulation and climate modelsThe Commentary is further used as an opportunity to outline and review the current state of the small‐large scale coupling topic [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]