Meridional Transport, the most fundamental climate variable
16 hours ago Andy May 76 Comments
By Andy May
“The atmospheric heat transport on Earth from the Equator to the poles is largely carried out by the mid-latitude storms. However, there is no satisfactory theory to describe this fundamental feature of the Earth’s climate.”
(Barry, Craig, & Thuburn, 2002)
This is the transcript of the talk I gave in Tom Nelson’s podcast interview here.
After Leon Barry and his colleagues write the above statement in their Nature article, they write that the middle latitudes are a zone of strong temperature gradients and these gradients generate storms that can be severe. Their paper proposes that the severity of the storms is proportional to the temperature gradient, such that the smaller the temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles, the fewer severe storms are needed to accomplish the task of transferring excess tropical energy (or heat) to the poles. Keep this concept in mind as I describe meridional (north-south) energy transport.
Much of this talk is based on Javier Vinós’ new book Climate of the Past, Present, and Future, A Scientific Debate, 2nd Edition, Chapter 10. Figure 1, from the book, shows the global average temperature over one average year.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/25/meridional-transport-the-most-fundamental-climate-variable/
