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5: The Oceanic Heat Budget

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    About half the solar energy reaching Earth is absorbed by the ocean and land, where it is temporarily stored near the surface. Only about a fifth of the available solar energy is directly absorbed by the atmosphere. Of the energy absorbed by the ocean, most is released locally to the atmosphere, mostly by evaporation and infrared radiation. The remainder is transported by currents to other areas, especially the mid-latitudes.

    Heat lost by the tropical ocean is the major source of heat needed to drive the atmospheric circulation. And, solar energy stored in the ocean from summer to winter helps ameliorate Earth’s climate. The thermal energy transported by ocean currents is not steady, and significant changes in the transport, particularly in the Atlantic, may have been important for the development of the ice ages. For these reasons, oceanic heat budgets and transports are important for understanding Earth’s climate and its short and long term variability.

    • 5.1: The Oceanic Heat Budget
      Definition of heat flux and heat budget; conservation of heat at the ocean surface.
    • 5.2: Heat-Budget Terms
      Examining the factors that influence each term of the heat budget (insolation, infrared, latent heat, and sensible heat flux).
    • 5.3: Direct Calculation of Fluxes
      Gust-probe measurements of wind, humidity, and temperature as the only accurate method for calculating fluxes of sensible and latent heat and momentum at the sea surface. How these measurements are used to calibrate other methods of calculating fluxes.
    • 5.4: Indirect Calculation of Fluxes: Bulk Formulas
      Using bulk formulas to obtain long-term, global values of fluxes for sensible and latent heat and momentum from practical measurements.
    • 5.5: Global Data Sets for Fluxes
      Discussion of ships and satellites as data sources, and some of the more widely used data sets. Accuracy of the fluxes calculated from these data sets.
    • 5.6: Geographic Distribution of Terms
      Global averages and geographic distributions of the terms for Earth's heat budget.
    • 5.7: Meridional Heat Transport
      Meridional heat transport, or the process by which the atmospheric and oceanic circulation transport heat from low to high latitudes to balance the gains and losses as Earth gains heat at the top of the tropical atmosphere and loses heat at the top of the polar atmosphere.
    • 5.8: Variations in Solar Constant
      Brief discussion of the correlation between variations in the solar constant (the output of light and heat from the Sun) and changes in the global mean temperature of Earth's surface.
    • 5.9: Important Concepts
      Major concepts covered in this chapter.

    This page titled 5: The Oceanic Heat Budget is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Robert H. Stewart via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.