Meridional energy transport in the coupled atmosphere-ocean System

Theoretical arguments suggest that at low latitudes the heat transport in the ocean will robustly dominate that of the atmosphere, and this is consistent with observations. On the other hand, in mid- and high-latitudes the heat transport in the atmosphere is observed to dominate. Theoretical arguments suggest that this dominance is parameter dependent, and will depend on such things as the diapycnal diffusivity in the ocean, the width of the ocean basin, the rotation rate of the earth, the presence or otherwise of a zonally periodic ocean channel in the Southern Hemisphere (or elsewhere), and the atmospheric deformation radius, which in turn is a function of the flow regime and the pole-equator temperature contrast.

We present various scalings for heat transports in different latitudes and in different regimes to elucidate these dependencies. Finally, using various configurations of an idealized, coupled ocean-atmosphere, primitive equation model, we test some of these predictions.