Abstract
Conservation of water demands that meridional ocean and atmosphere freshwater transports (FWT) are of equal magnitude but opposite in direction. This suggests that the atmospheric FWT and its associated latent heat (LH) transport could be thought of as a “coupled ocean/atmosphere mode.” But what is the true nature of this coupling? Is the ocean passive or active? Here, we analyze a series of simulations with a coupled ocean-atmosphere-sea ice model employing highly idealized geometries but with markedly different coupled climates and patterns of ocean circulation. Exploiting streamfunctions in specific humidity coordinates for the atmosphere and salt coordinates for the ocean to represent FWT in their respective medium, we find that atmospheric FWT/LH transport is essentially independent of the ocean state. Ocean circulation and salinity distribution adjust to achieve a return freshwater pathway demanded of them by the atmosphere. So, although ocean and atmosphere FWTs are indeed coupled by mass conservation, the ocean is a passive component acting as a reservoir of freshwater.
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Notes
From Rhines et al. (2008): “Latent heat is fresh water (2.4 PW per Sverdrup), and its transport is an intrinsically coupled ocean/atmosphere mode”
Mass fluxes in the atmosphere and volume fluxes in the (Boussinesq) ocean
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Richard Greatbatch for advice and encouragements over the years. His openness, wide interest, and enthusiasm for all matters Atmosphere and Ocean is an example to all of us. We thank the Physical Oceanography program of NSF.
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Responsible Editor: Jinyu Sheng
This article is part of the Topical Collection on Atmosphere and Ocean Dynamics: A Scientific Workshop to Celebrate Professor Dr. Richard Greatbatch’s 60th Birthday, Liverpool, UK, 10-11 April 2014.
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Ferreira, D., Marshall, J. Freshwater transport in the coupled ocean-atmosphere system: a passive ocean. Ocean Dynamics 65, 1029–1036 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-015-0846-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-015-0846-6