Parameterization of the Meridional Eddy Heat and Momentum Fluxes

Abstract

Green?s eddy diffusive transfer representation is used to parameterize the meridional eddy heat flux. The structural function obtained by Branscome for the diagonal component Kyy in the tensor of the transfer coefficients is adopted. A least squares method that uses the observed data of eddy heat flux is proposed to evaluate the magnitude of Kyy and the structure of the nondiagonal component Kyz in the transfer coefficient tensor. The optimum motion characteristic at the steering level is used as a constraint for the relationship between Kyy and Kyz. The obtained magnitude of Kyy is two to three times larger than that of the Branscome?s, which is obtained in a linear analysis with the assumption of Kyz = 0. Green?s vertically integrated expression for the meridional eddy momentum flux is used to test the coefficients obtained in the eddy heat flux. In this parameterization, the eddy momentum flux is related to the eddy fluxes of two conserved quantities: potential vorticity and potential temperature. The transfer coefficient is taken to be the sum of that obtained in the parameterization of eddy heat flux, plus a correction term suggested by Stone and Yao, which ensures the global net eddy momentum transport to be zero. What makes the present method attractive is that, even though only the data of eddy heat flux are used to evaluate the magnitude of the transfer coefficients, the obtained magnitude of the eddy momentum flux is in good agreement with observations. For the annual mean calculation, the obtained peak values of eddy momentum flux are 94% of the observation for the Northern Hemisphere and 101% for the Southern Hemisphere. This result significantly improves the result of Stone and Yao, who obtained 34% for the Northern Hemisphere and 16% for the Southern Hemisphere in a similar calculation, but in which Kyz = 0 was assumed.