Geoff Vallis

Princeton University

Meridional Energy Transport in the Atmosphere-Ocean System

Room 811 AO&SS, November 9, 2009, 3:30 PM

Abstract

I will discuss the meridional energy transport in the coupled atmosphere-ocean system, with an emphasis on the extra-tropics. Questions of interest include what determines the magnitude of the total transport? What determines the partitioning between atmosphere and ocean? Are variations in one subsystem compensated for by variations in the other (so that total variations are small), or do the two subsystems vary synchronously? Are there any grand underlying principles we can use to avoid solving the equations or motion? I will present some elementary scaling arguments addressing the above questions and some idealized numerical simulations.