A modelling study of the Bjerknes compensation in the meridional heat transport in a freshening ocean

The compensation between the meridional heat transports in the atmosphere and ocean is studied through a coupled model's water-hosing experiments. It is found that the atmospheric heat transport (AHT) change compensates the oceanic heat transport (OHT) change very well in the extratropics, whil...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography
Main Authors: Yang, Haijun, Wang, Yuxing, Liu, Zhengyu
Other Authors: Yang, HJ (reprint author), Peking Univ, Sch Phys, Dept Atmospher & Ocean Sci, Lab Climate & Ocean Atmosphere Studies LaCOAS, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China., Peking Univ, Sch Phys, Dept Atmospher & Ocean Sci, Lab Climate & Ocean Atmosphere Studies LaCOAS, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China.
Format: Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: tellus series a dynamic meteorology and oceanography 2013
Subjects:
meridional heat transport
overturning circulation
Hadley Cell
compensation
COUPLED CLIMATE MODEL
ENERGY TRANSPORTS
THERMOHALINE CIRCULATION
TROPICAL OCEAN
NORTH-ATLANTIC
ATMOSPHERE
VARIABILITY
Pacific
North Atlantic
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11897/296722
https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusa.v65i0.18480
Description
Summary:The compensation between the meridional heat transports in the atmosphere and ocean is studied through a coupled model's water-hosing experiments. It is found that the atmospheric heat transport (AHT) change compensates the oceanic heat transport (OHT) change very well in the extratropics, while the former overcompensates the latter in the tropics. Similar to previous studies, the fresh water input in the high latitude Atlantic weakens the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and thus the northward Atlantic OHT significantly, leading to a warming (cooling) in sea surface temperature in the Southern (Northern) Hemisphere and in turn a southward shift of atmospheric convection. This results in an enhanced Hadley Cell (HC) and stronger northward AHT, compensating the reduced Atlantic OHT. Meanwhile, the wind-driven Subtropical Cell in the Indo-Pacific oceans is enhanced in response to the HC change, increasing the northward OHT in the Indo-Pacific, which partly offsets the reduced OHT in the Atlantic. The response in the Indo-Pacific is responsible for the overcompensation of the AHT to the global OHT. The Held's mechanism works very well in the tropical Indo-Pacific in our experiments. This is substantially different from previous studies. http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000319401300001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=8e1609b174ce4e31116a60747a720701 Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences Oceanography SCI(E) 10 ARTICLE null 65

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