Observational constraints on atmospheric and oceanic cross-equatorial heat transports: revisiting the precipitation asymmetry problem in climate models

• DOI: 10.1007/s00382-015-2766-z
• Publication Date: 2015-08-03T11:39:17Z
• Authors: Norman G. Loeb; Hailan Wang; Anning Cheng; Seiji Kato; John T. Fasullo; Kuan-Man Xu; Richard P. Allan
• Keywords: Shortwave radiation; Longwave; Radiative Cooling; Shortwave; Atmospheric models

Abstract Satellite based top-of-atmosphere (TOA) and surface radiation budget observations are combined with mass corrected vertically integrated atmospheric energy divergence tendency from reanalysis to infer the regional distribution of TOA, terms over globe. Hemispheric contrasts in used determine radiative sensible latent heat contributions cross-equatorial transports atmosphere (AHT EQ ) ocean (OHT ). The contrast net implies an AHT northern hemisphere (NH) southern (SH) (0.75 PW), while hemispheric difference opposite direction (0.51 resulting a NH SH (0.24 PW). At surface, component (0.95 PW) dominates, implying 0.44 PW OHT . Coupled model intercomparison project phase 5 (CMIP5) models excessive downward surface-to-atmosphere transport relative exhibit anomalous northward overestimate tropical precipitation. bias flux is due too much longwave cooling tropics both clear all-sky conditions shortwave subtropics extratropics underestimation reflection by clouds.