Atmospheric heat transport is governed by meridional gradients in surface evaporation in modern-day earth-like climates.

ABSTRACT: Evaporation adds moisture to the atmosphere, while condensation removes it. Condensation also adds thermal energy to the atmosphere, which must be removed from the atmosphere by radiative cooling. As a result of these two processes, there is a net flow of energy driven by surface evaporation adding energy and radiative cooling removing energy from the atmosphere. Here, we calculate the implied heat transport of this process to find the atmospheric heat transport in balance with the surface evaporation. In modern-day Earth-like climates, evaporation varies strongly between the equator and the poles, while the net radiative cooling in the atmosphere is nearly meridionally uniform, and as a consequence, the heat transport governed by evaporation is similar to the total poleward heat transport

SUBMITTER: Fajber R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10288573 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature