Energy Balance Climate Models

Chapter 5Latitude Dependence

We turn now to the latitude dependence of the surface temperature in the one-horizontal-dimension energy balance model (EBM) and the main factors that govern its shape. The satellite data indicate that there is far more net solar radiation absorbed combined with cooling to space by infrared radiation in tropical latitudes than in the polar regions. In order to maintain steady state, there must be some mechanism in the atmosphere/ocean system that transports heat poleward. In the 1960s, there were pioneering papers written independently by Budyko (1968 1969) and Sellers (1969) that considered EBMs that employed simplified mechanisms for the transport depending only on the mean-annual zonally averaged surface temperature. ...