caa a22 4500 605546614 CHVBK 20210128100942.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150701xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10236-015-0846-6 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10236-015-0846-6 Freshwater transport in the coupled ocean-atmosphere system: a passive ocean [Elektronische Daten] [David Ferreira, John Marshall] Conservation of water demands that meridional ocean and atmosphere freshwater transports (FWT) are of equal magnitude but opposite in direction. This suggests that the atmospheric FWT and its associated latent heat (LH) transport could be thought of as a "coupled ocean/atmosphere mode.” But what is the true nature of this coupling? Is the ocean passive or active? Here, we analyze a series of simulations with a coupled ocean-atmosphere-sea ice model employing highly idealized geometries but with markedly different coupled climates and patterns of ocean circulation. Exploiting streamfunctions in specific humidity coordinates for the atmosphere and salt coordinates for the ocean to represent FWT in their respective medium, we find that atmospheric FWT/LH transport is essentially independent of the ocean state. Ocean circulation and salinity distribution adjust to achieve a return freshwater pathway demanded of them by the atmosphere. So, although ocean and atmosphere FWTs are indeed coupled by mass conservation, the ocean is a passive component acting as a reservoir of freshwater. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2015 Freshwater transport nationallicence Latent heat transport nationallicence Hydrological cycle nationallicence Ferreira David Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, PO Box 243, RG6 6BB, Reading, UK aut Marshall John Department of Earth Atmosphere and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 02139, Cambridge, MA, USA aut Ocean Dynamics Springer Berlin Heidelberg 65/7(2015-07-01), 1029-1036 1616-7341 65:7<1029 2015 65 10236 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-015-0846-6 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-015-0846-6 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Ferreira David Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, PO Box 243, RG6 6BB, Reading, UK aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Marshall John Department of Earth Atmosphere and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 02139, Cambridge, MA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Ocean Dynamics Springer Berlin Heidelberg 65/7(2015-07-01), 1029-1036 1616-7341 65:7<1029 2015 65 10236