The fully coupled atmosphere-ocean climate on an aquaplanet geography

Understanding the fully coupled atmospheric and oceanic contribution in determining the equator-to-pole temperature gradient poses a challenging problem for both climate and paleoclimate communities. An aquaplanet configuration in which the surface is covered by water is the simplest ideal climate system to study in order to quantify the coupled interaction between atmosphere and ocean in influencing surface temperatures from the tropics to the poles. Using the fully coupled NCAR CCSM3, the resulting climate states under this configuration are presented and compared with published two other fully-coupled atmosphere-ocean aquaplanet simulations. -9-2010-->