scholarly journals A Quantitative Scaling Theory for Meridional Heat Transport in Planetary Atmospheres and Oceans

AGU Advances ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Basile Gallet ◽  
Raffaele Ferrari
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transport ◽  
Planetary Atmospheres ◽  
Scaling Theory ◽  
Meridional Heat Transport

Drivers of (non-)linear Eocene surface warming in the DeepMIP ensemble

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Steinig ◽  
Jiang Zhu ◽  
Ran Feng ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Temperature Gradient ◽  
Heat Transport ◽  
Climate Sensitivity ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Surface Albedo ◽  
Early Eocene ◽  
Meridional Heat Transport ◽  
Surface Warming ◽  
Global Mean

<p>The early Eocene greenhouse represents the warmest interval of the Cenozoic and therefore provides a unique opportunity to understand how the climate system operates under elevated atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> levels similar to those projected for the end of the 21st century. Early Eocene geological records indicate a large increase in global mean surface temperatures compared to present day (by ~14°C) and a greatly reduced meridional temperature gradient (by ~30% in SST). However, reproducing these large-scale climate features at reasonable CO<sub>2</sub> levels still poses a challenge for current climate models. Recent modelling studies indicate an important role for shortwave (SW) cloud feedbacks to drive increases in climate sensitivity with global warming, which helps to close the gap between simulated and reconstructed Eocene global warmth and temperature gradient. Nevertheless, the presence of such state-dependent feedbacks and their relative strengths in other models remain unclear.</p><p>In this study, we perform a systematic investigation of the simulated surface warming and the underlying mechanisms in the recently published DeepMIP ensemble. The DeepMIP early Eocene simulations use identical paleogeographic boundary conditions and include six models with suitable output: CESM1.2_CAM5, GFDL_CM2.1, HadCM3B_M2.1aN, IPSLCM5A2, MIROC4m and NorESM1_F. We advance previous energy balance analysis by applying the approximate partial radiative perturbation (APRP) technique to quantify the individual contributions of surface albedo, cloud and non-cloud atmospheric changes to the simulated Eocene top-of-the-atmosphere SW flux anomalies. We further compare the strength of these planetary albedo feedbacks to changes in the longwave atmospheric emissivity and meridional heat transport in the warm Eocene climate. Particular focus lies in the sensitivity of the feedback strengths to increasing global mean temperatures in experiments at a range of atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> concentrations between x1 to x9 preindustrial levels.</p><p>Preliminary results indicate that all models that provide data for at least 3 different CO<sub>2</sub> levels show an increase of the equilibrium climate sensitivity at higher global mean temperatures. This is associated with an increase of the overall strength of the positive SW cloud feedback with warming in those models. This nonlinear behavior seems to be related to both a reduction and optical thinning of low-level clouds, albeit with intermodel differences in the relative importance of the two mechanisms. We further show that our new APRP results can differ significantly from previous estimates based on cloud radiative forcing alone, especially in high-latitude areas with large surface albedo changes. We also find large intermodel variability and state-dependence in meridional heat transport modulated by changes in the atmospheric latent heat transport. Ongoing work focuses on the spatial patterns of the climate feedbacks and the implications for the simulated meridional temperature gradients.</p>

scholarly journals Oceanic Overturning and Heat Transport: The Role of Background Diffusivity

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 701-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnus Hieronymus ◽  
Jonas Nycander ◽  
Johan Nilsson ◽  
Kristofer Döös ◽  
Robert Hallberg
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transport ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Energy Transport ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Potential Temperature ◽  
Meridional Heat Transport ◽  
Sea Ice Extent ◽  
Antarctic Sea Ice ◽  
Meridional Overturning

The role of oceanic background diapycnal diffusion for the equilibrium climate state is investigated in the global coupled climate model CM2G. Special emphasis is put on the oceanic meridional overturning and heat transport. Six runs with the model, differing only by their value of the background diffusivity, are run to steady state and the statistically steady integrations are compared. The diffusivity changes have large-scale impacts on many aspects of the climate system. Two examples are the volume-mean potential temperature, which increases by 3.6°C between the least and most diffusive runs, and the Antarctic sea ice extent, which decreases rapidly as the diffusivity increases. The overturning scaling with diffusivity is found to agree rather well with classical theoretical results for the upper but not for the lower cell. An alternative empirical scaling with the mixing energy is found to give good results for both cells. The oceanic meridional heat transport increases strongly with the diffusivity, an increase that can only partly be explained by increases in the meridional overturning. The increasing poleward oceanic heat transport is accompanied by a decrease in its atmospheric counterpart, which keeps the increase in the planetary energy transport small compared to that in the ocean.

scholarly journals Scaling theory of heat transport in quasi-one-dimensional disordered harmonic chains

2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Bodyfelt ◽  
Mei C. Zheng ◽  
Ragnar Fleischmann ◽  
Tsampikos Kottos
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transport ◽  
Scaling Theory ◽  
One Dimensional

Micropaleontological Evidence for Increased Meridional Heat Transport in the North Atlantic Ocean During the Pliocene

Science ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 258 (5085) ◽  
pp. 1133-1135 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. J. Dowsett ◽  
T. M. Cronin ◽  
R. Z. Poore ◽  
R. S. Thompson ◽  
R. C. Whatley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic Ocean ◽  
Heat Transport ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
North Atlantic Ocean ◽  
Meridional Heat Transport ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Atlantic
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