A new method to assess mesoscale contributions to meridional heat transport in the North Atlantic Ocean

Delman, Andrew; Lee, Tong

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-16-979-2020

Articles | Volume 16, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-16-979-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-16-979-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 4

Research article

|

27 Aug 2020

Research article |

| 27 Aug 2020

A new method to assess mesoscale contributions to meridional heat transport in the North Atlantic Ocean

Andrew Delman and Tong Lee

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Final revised paper (published on 27 Aug 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 31 Mar 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of "A new method to assess mesoscale contributions to meridional heat transport in the North Atlantic Ocean" by Delman and Lee', Anonymous Referee #1, 30 Apr 2020
- AC1: 'Authors' Response to Reviewer Comment 1', Andrew Delman, 17 Jun 2020
RC2: 'Review of Delman and Lee', Anonymous Referee #2, 18 May 2020
- AC2: 'Authors' Response to Reviewer Comment 2', Andrew Delman, 17 Jun 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Andrew Delman on behalf of the Authors (17 Jun 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (06 Jul 2020) by Bernadette Sloyan

AR by Andrew Delman on behalf of the Authors (07 Jul 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (20 Jul 2020) by Bernadette Sloyan

Short summary

The oceans play an important role in moving heat between the equatorial and polar regions, with both large current systems and smaller eddies contributing to this heat transport. This analysis separates the contribution of the larger-scale and eddy-scale flows in the North Atlantic, finding that eddy-scale flows account for 25–35 % of the heat transport in middle latitudes near 40° N. The study also shows how the year-to-year variability of eddies contributes to heat transport changes at 40° N.