Dynamics of inertial particles on the ocean surface with unrestricted reserve buoyancy

The purpose of this note is to present an enhancement to a Maxey–Riley theory proposed in recent years for the dynamics of inertial particles on the ocean surface [Beron-Vera et al., “Building a Maxey–Riley framework for surface ocean inertial particle dynamics,” Phys. Fluids 31, 096602 (2019)]. This updated model removes constraints on the reserve buoyancy, defined as the fraction of the particle volume above the ocean surface. The refinement results in an equation that correctly describes both the neutrally buoyant and fully buoyant particle scenarios.