Energetics of ocean circulation models

海洋环流在地球气候系统中起着关键作用。与这里提出的工作有关，它重新分配热量，为大气提供了一个重要的边界条件，并为大气CO2提供了一个汇。海洋学界越来越意识到，我们对海洋环流的一个非常基本的方面缺乏了解：我们不了解它的能量学。这具有实际意义（例如，气候模拟），因为这些模式对强迫变化的响应可能取决于模式能量学。例如，虽然大气-海洋耦合模型可以调整到充分再现当前条件，但如果模型的能量学不反映实际系统的能量学，则其对大气成分变化的反应可能与实际耦合系统的反应不同。

Ocean circulation plays a key role in the earth's climate system. Relevant to the work proposed here, it redistributes heat, provides an important boundary condition for the atmosphere and provides a sink for atmospheric CO2. There is a growing awareness in the oceanographic community that knowledge of a very fundamental aspect of ocean circulation is lacking: we do not understand its energetics. This has practical implications (e.g., to climate modelling) in that the response of these models to changes in forcing are likely dependent on model energetics. For example, although a coupled atmosphere-ocean model may be tuned to adequately reproduce current conditions, its response to changes in atmospheric composition will likely differ from that of the actual coupled system if the model energetics do not reflect those of the actual system.