The effect of temperature-dependent exchange coeeficients on poleward heat flux by oceanic gyres

Abstract

The gravitational stability of the air overlying the sea surface is determined by the air-sea temperature difference. Air-sea exchange coeeficients have been shown to increase when the air is unstable and decrease when the air is stable. This stability dependence of the wind stress has been approximated by a linear law relating wind stress to air-sea temperature difference and it has been shown that this thermal feedback generates a warm, Gulf-Stream-like jet emerging from the western boundary current eastward into the interior. Here, the thermal correction is applied tot he wind stress and to the air-sea heat exchange coefficient to study the effects on the circulation and on the poleward heat flux. The basic dynamical model is linear, wind-driven and has an anticyclonic gyre in the southern half and an equally intense cyclonic half in the northern half basin. The thermodynamic model uses the vertically averaged, convective-diffusive heat equation. Thermal feedback leads to a compression of the anticyclonic gyre to a narrower lattitude band near the western boundary and to a warm Gulf Stream extending eastward into the interior. The redistribution of the dynamical properties in the anticyclonic gyre resembles that due to inertial processes. In the cyclonic gyre the changes are quite unlike those due to inertial effects. The main quantitative change is the poleward heat flux across the gyre boundary, which can be several times the value obtained without feedback and should be important for climate studies.