Eddy Influences on the Strength of the Hadley Circulation: Dynamic and Thermodynamic Perspectives

Abstract

Abstract The strength of the equinoctial Hadley circulation (HC) is investigated in idealized simulations conducted on an equatorial beta plane in which the zonal width of the domain is varied to either permit or suppress large-scale eddies. The presence of such eddies is found to amplify the HC by a factor of 2–3 in simulations with slab-ocean boundary conditions or with a simple representation of ocean heat transport. Additional simulations in which the eddy forcing is prescribed externally indicate that this amplification is primarily associated with large-scale eddy momentum fluxes rather than large-scale eddy heat fluxes. These results contrast with results from simulations with fixed distributions of sea surface temperature (SST), in which the HC strength has been found to be relatively insensitive to large-scale eddy momentum fluxes. In both the interactive- and fixed-SST cases, the influence of nonlinear momentum advection by the mean flow complicates efforts to use the angular-momentum budget to constrain the HC strength. However, a strong relationship is found between the HC strength and a measure of the meridional gradient of boundary layer entropy, indicating a possible thermodynamic control on the HC strength. In simulations with interactive SSTs, meridional eddy momentum fluxes affect the boundary layer entropy by inducing a low-level frictional flow that reduces the ability of the HC to transport heat poleward. This allows for the maintenance of a large meridional entropy gradient in the presence of a strong HC. The results highlight the potential utility of a thermodynamic perspective for understanding the HC in flow regimes for which dynamical constraints may be difficult to apply.