a Simple Zonal Average Energy Budget Model of the Earth-Atmosphere System

Mathematics – Logic

Scientific paper

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Atmosphere

Scientific paper

A zonal average energy budget of the earth-atmosphere system resolving land and ocean areas is developed. The globe is divided into ten-degree-wide latitudinal belts characterized by longitudinally-averaged meteorological and geographical properties. Satellite-derived total cloud cover data are used to construct cloud optical depth and cloud-top height climatologies so that the model reproduces satellite measured values of planetary albedo and outgoing longwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere. A heat budget analysis is carried out for each latitude zone identifying all relevant heat sources and sinks. The physical processes that drive the energetics of the earth-atmosphere system are modeled or parameterized to obtain estimates of the components of the energy budget at the Earth's surface and in the atmosphere for the months of January, April, July and October. These months are assumed to be representative of each of the seasons. The model attains two-dimensional global coverage by combining adjacent latitude belts. Zonally -averaged meridional heat fluxes by the global ocean and by the atmosphere are computed by differencing the energy imbalances between continuous latitude belts. The results obtained indicate that it is the atmosphere rather than the ocean which accomplishes most of the poleward flux of heat required to maintain the global energy balance. An evaluation of the albedo and greenhouse effects of clouds is performed as well as an analysis of the effects of the diurnal variation of solar zenith angle in the estimation of planetary albedo.

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