Climate sensitivity to changes in solar insolation in a simple coupled climate model

A simple coupled ocean, atmosphere and sea-ice model is presented. The idealised model consists of a zonally averaged land and ocean strip of constant angular width extending from pole to pole. The meridional energy transport in the ocean is modelled by contributions from the large scale thermohaline overturning cells and from horizontal diffusive fluxes. The atmospheric meridional energy transports are parametrised as diffiusive fluxes in addition to advective transports in the Hadley domain. This parametrisation resolves the equatorward moisture transport as well as the poleward transport of potential energy in the upper branch of the Hadley circulation. The model reproduces the annual averaged meridional energy transports in the climate system with a small number of free model parameters. The basic feedbacks between the three climatic components are studied by investigating the model's sensitivity towards reductions in the solar insolation. It is found that the meridional energy transport in the ocean does not amplify the ice albedo feedback. This has important implications for modelling the climate sensitivity in atmosphere-only models, as these would exaggerate the sensitivity to changes in the solar insolation if their parametrisations of the meridional energy transport are constrained by surface temperatures. The role of the dependence of the atmospheric transports on the meridional temperature gradient is shown to have a significant influence on the sensitivity on the coupled model, and the inclusion of seasonal cycles greatly increase the models sensitivity. The Hadley circulation does significantly alter the strength of the ice-albedo feedback in the coupled model. The idealised configuration of the model makes it a useful tool for studying the feedbacks in the ocean-atmosphere-sea ice system in the context of the ''Snowball Earth'' hypothesis.