The heat transport in mid-latitutes through cyclones and planetary waves

What is it about?

The atmospheric heat transport from low to high latitudes is the main mechanism through which the climate reequilibrates the latitudinally uneven absorption of solar radiation. The atmospheric transport is fueled by instabilities driven by the presence of temperature differences between low and high latitudes and acts in such a way to reduce such gradient. This is one of the main stabilizing mechanisms of the climate system. In this work, we investigate how motions of different spatial scales contribute to atmospheric heat transports in the Northern Hemisphere. We discover that the relative importance of synoptic and planetary scale atmospheric motions is different in summer and winter. Our analysis delves into the analysis of events associated with extreme heat transport toward high latitudes, where we see a compensating mechanism between synoptic and planetary atmospheric motions. We further study days characterized by very large and very small (or even negative) heat transport toward the high latitudes. These “extreme events” are driven by complex interactions between the different scales. Our results are relevant for elucidating basic dynamical and thermodynamical properties of the atmosphere and can be used to benchmark the performance of climate models.

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