Earth’s changing global atmospheric energy cycle in response to climate change

Yefeng Pan, Liming Li (), Xun Jiang, Li Gan (), Wentao Zhang, Xinyue Wang and Andrew P. Ingersoll
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Yefeng Pan: University of Houston
Liming Li: University of Houston
Xun Jiang: University of Houston
Wentao Zhang: School of Electronic Engineering and automation, Guilin University of Electronic Technology
Xinyue Wang: Institute of information Technology, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin
Andrew P. Ingersoll: Caltech

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract The Lorenz energy cycle is widely used to investigate atmospheres and climates on planets. However, the long-term temporal variations of such an energy cycle have not yet been explored. Here we use three independent meteorological data sets from the modern satellite era, to examine the temporal characteristics of the Lorenz energy cycle of Earth’s global atmosphere in response to climate change. The total mechanical energy of the global atmosphere basically remains constant with time, but the global-average eddy energies show significant positive trends. The spatial investigations suggest that these positive trends are concentrated in the Southern Hemisphere. Significant positive trends are also found in the conversion, generation and dissipation rates of energies. The positive trends in the dissipation rates of kinetic energies suggest that the efficiency of the global atmosphere as a heat engine increased during the modern satellite era.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14367

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