Statistics of Jet Drop Production.

Bubbles bursting at the ocean surface are an important source of sea‐spray aerosol. We describe jet drop production, from ensembles of high fidelity numerical simulations of bubble bursting, validated against experimental results. The number of jet drops, their size, and velocity are controlled by the ratio of the bubble size, Rb, and the visco‐capillary length, lμ=ρwγRb/μw2, where γ is the surface tension, ρw, μw the water density and viscosity. The mean drop size follows 〈rd〉∝(Rb/lμ)5/4 and the ejected number of drops n∝(Rb/lμ)−1/3, accounting for temperature variations. We confirm that submicrons jet drops are produced by bubbles in the 10–40 microns range. We compute the distribution of jet drops formed by a range of bubbles present under a breaking wave which compares well against laboratory experiments. We discuss the applicability of the proposed formulation in the context of sea spray generation function. Plain Language Summary: Bubbles bursting at the ocean surface have long been recognized as an important source of sea spray aerosols. However, the description of sea spray production remains elusive in parts due to the large range of scales involved, from bubble bursting at the ocean surface to large scale breaking waves. We discuss the range of droplets that can be formed by bubble bursting, for bubble sizes typical of ocean conditions. We show that jet drops can have sizes from 0.5 to 500 microns, and propose theoretical relationships to describe their size and number, as a function of the bubble size, as well as water temperature and salinity. The results compare very well to laboratory experiments, and pave the way toward mechanistic formulation of sea spray, to be used in atmospheric and climate models. Key Points: We perform numerical simulations of the two‐phase Navier‐Stokes equations to resolve bubble bursting and jet drop productionWe describe the jet drop distribution for a wide range of bubble conditions, with droplet production from 0.5 to 500 micronsThe jet drop distribution from bubbles under breaking waves is compatible with laboratory measurements of drop distribution [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]