Air-sea interaction heat and momentum fluxes based on vessel’s experimental observations over Spanish waters

Abstract. Ocean and atmosphere are directly communicated through air-sea interaction fluxes. These include heat exchange, by latent (LHFL) and sensible (SHFL) heat, and momentum (MOFL), by wind stress. They stand as the leading predictors of how ocean influences atmospheric variability, and vice versa. In this paper, meteorological and upper-ocean measurements collected during the period 2011–2023 aboard four research vessels over Spanish waters and adjacent seas, are used to study air-sea interaction fluxes. These research vessels are: Ramón Margalef (RM), Ángeles Alvariño (AJ) and Cornide de Saavedra (CS) belonging to Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO-CSIC); and Miguel Oliver (MO), from Secretaría General de Pesca of Spain. Recorded data are daily sent to the IEO Data Center on land, where quality control procedures are applied. Heat and momentum fluxes products are derived using the bulk aerodynamic approximation and are stored within a MEDAR/MedAtlas format alongside the meteorological and ocean variables used in the calculation. The data set generated and described here are publicly available at SEANOE. In order to study the behaviour of these air-sea fluxes, several marine regions subdivisions, based on the heterogeneity of the Spanish waters, are proposed. Additionally, some results within these regions context are shown.