HR: 1340h
AN: A13E-1614    [Abstracts]
TI: Sea Ice, High-Latitude Convection, and Equable Climates
AU: * Abbot, D S
EM: abbot@fas.harvard.edu
AF: Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
AU: Tziperman, E
EM: eli@eps.harvard.edu
AF: Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
AU: Tziperman, E
EM: eli@eps.harvard.edu
AF: Harvard University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
AB: It is argued that deep atmospheric convection might occur during winter in ice-free high-latitude oceans, and that the surface radiative warming effects of the clouds and water vapor associated with this winter convection could keep high-latitude oceans ice-free through polar night. In such an ice-free high-latitude ocean the annual-mean SST would be much higher and the seasonal cycle would be dramatically reduced - making potential implications for equable climates manifest. The constraints that atmospheric heat transport, ocean heat transport, and CO₂ concentration place on this mechanism are established. These ideas are investigated using a column model with state-of-the-art atmospheric physics, high vertical resolution, a full seasonal cycle, a thermodynamic sea ice model, and a mixed layer ocean (the SCAM).
DE: 0321 Cloud/radiation interaction
DE: 1620 Climate dynamics (0429, 3309)
DE: 3310 Clouds and cloud feedbacks
DE: 3314 Convective processes
DE: 3344 Paleoclimatology (0473, 4900)
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting