Hydrological cycle and ocean stratification in a coupled climate system: a theoretical study

Ou, Hsien-Wang

doi:10.3402/tellusa.v59i5.15157

Cited by 7 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…Ou (2001) argued that a shifting balance of high vs low clouds can result in climate-regulating behavior. Ou (2006Ou ( , 2007 extended this work to explore the impacts for the hydrological cycle, including humidity profiles, atmospheric moisture transport, and ocean stratification. This work was able to derive basic, observed relationships from his simple model.…”

Section: Mep and Climate System Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a series of papers, Ou developed a simple model of the climate system and used MEP to parameterize poleward heat transport to investigate long-term climate stability with respect to cloud feedbacks and the implications for climate system functioning (Ou 2001(Ou , 2006(Ou , 2007. Ou (2001) argued that a shifting balance of high vs low clouds can result in climate-regulating behavior.…”

Section: Mep and Climate System Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and maximum entropy production in the Earth system

Kleidon

2009

Naturwissenschaften

146

123

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The Earth system is maintained in a unique state far from thermodynamic equilibrium, as, for instance, reflected in the high concentration of reactive oxygen in the atmosphere. The myriad of processes that transform energy, that result in the motion of mass in the atmosphere, in oceans, and on land, processes that drive the global water, carbon, and other biogeochemical cycles, all have in common that they are irreversible in their nature. Entropy production is a general consequence of these processes and measures their degree of irreversibility. The proposed principle of maximum entropy production (MEP) states that systems are driven to steady states in which they produce entropy at the maximum possible rate given the prevailing constraints. In this review, the basics of nonequilibrium thermodynamics are described, as well as how these apply to Earth system processes. Applications of the MEP principle are discussed, ranging from the strength of the atmospheric circulation, the hydrological cycle, and biogeochemical cycles to the role that life plays in these processes. Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and the MEP principle have potentially wide-ranging implications for our understanding of Earth system functioning, how it has evolved in the past, and why it is habitable. Entropy production allows us to quantify an objective direction of Earth system change (closer to vs further away from thermodynamic equilibrium, or, equivalently, towards a state of MEP). When a maximum in entropy production is reached, MEP implies A. Kleidon (B) Max-Planck-Institut für Biogeochemie, Postfach 10 01 64, 07701 Jena, Germany e-mail: akleidon@bgc-jena.mpg.de that the Earth system reacts to perturbations primarily with negative feedbacks. In conclusion, this nonequilibrium thermodynamic view of the Earth system shows great promise to establish a holistic description of the Earth as one system. This perspective is likely to allow us to better understand and predict its function as one entity, how it has evolved in the past, and how it is modified by human activities in the future.

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Section: Mep and Climate System Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mep and Climate System Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and maximum entropy production in the Earth system

Kleidon

2009

Naturwissenschaften

146

123

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“…Since the moisture transport is proportional to the atmospheric heat transport on account of the Clausius-Clapeyron Equation (Ou 2007), the increasing atmospheric heat transport with decreasing K implies a salinity deficit ( ′) that increases faster than temperature deficit ′ before the convective bound, but at the same rate afterward when the atmospheric heat transport has saturated. The disparate slopes of the two curves result in a density surplus ( ′ = ′ − ′) that has opposite slopes straddling the convective bound, the latter thus divides the climate regime into warn and cold branches, a robust outcome of the atmospheric coupling.…”

Section: Regime Diagrammentioning

confidence: 99%

A theory of glacial cycles: resolving Pleistocene puzzles

2021

Preprint

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Abstract. Since the summer surface air temperature that regulates the ice margin is anchored on the sea surface temperature, we posit that the climate system constitutes the intermediary of the orbital forcing of the glacial cycles. As such, the relevant forcing is the annual solar flux absorbed by the ocean, which naturally filters out the precession effect in early Pleistocene but mimics the Milankovitch insolation in late Pleistocene. For a coupled climate system that is inherent turbulent, we show that the ocean may be bistable with a cold state defined by the freezing point subpolar water, which would translate to ice bistates between a polar ice cap and an ice sheet extending to mid-latitudes, enabling large ice-volume signal regardless the forcing amplitude so long as the bistable thresholds are crossed. Such thresholds are set by the global convective flux, which would be lowered during the Pleistocene cooling, whose interplay with the ice-albedo feedback leads to transitions of the ice signal from that dominated by obliquity to the emerging precession cycles to the ice-age cycles paced by eccentricity. Through a single dynamical framework, the theory thus may resolve many long-standing puzzles of the glacial cycles.

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“…Freshwater flux F w in (3) can be perturbed by the SST. Warming of the cold box, for example, would increase the precipitable water in the overlying atmospheric column on account of the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, but it also reduces the differential heating of the atmosphere by the SST hence the poleward atmospheric energy transport, which would then counter the above effect (Ou 2007). The P-E over the cold box may also vary with the zonal convergence of the moisture transport (Timmermann et al 1998), whose quantitative linkage to the SST, however, remains unknown.…”

Section: Formulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But besides the ocean heat, the THC also redistributes the salt, and together they determine the large-scale density contrast, which in turn may regulate the strength of the THC. Incorporating these essential couplings, even simple box models have exhibited highly varied behavior due in essence to a salinity contrast that is counter to the density stratification (Stommel 1961); this configuration is itself a direct consequence of the poleward moisture transport driven by the differential heating (Marotzke and Stone 1995;Ou 2007), which has planted the root of the instability. In the finiteamplitude regime, the system behavior includes the multiequilibria (thermal, saline and saddle modes), Hopf bifurcation, limit cycle and hysteresis-all have been invoked to explain large swings in the paleoclimate (Broecker et al 1990;Rahmstorf 2002;Clark et al 2002;Dijkstra 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A box model of the Arctic natural variability

2012

Clim Dyn

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Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer-Verlag. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be self-archived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your work, please use the accepted author's version for posting to your own website or your institution's repository. You may further deposit the accepted author's version on a funder's repository at a funder's request, provided it is not made publicly available until 12 months after publication.

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Hydrological cycle and ocean stratification in a coupled climate system: a theoretical study

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and maximum entropy production in the Earth system

Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and maximum entropy production in the Earth system

A theory of glacial cycles: resolving Pleistocene puzzles

A box model of the Arctic natural variability

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