New estimates of the available potential energy in the world ocean

TLDR

Large density variations are confined to the upper few hundred meters of the oceans, and their greater stability explains why oceanic potential and kinetic energy are generally much smaller than atmospheric values. The authors used extensive global datasets to estimate and compare internal, potential, latent, and kinetic energy in the oceans and atmosphere, derived an expression for oceanic available gravitational potential energy, and extrapolated subsurface kinetic and transient eddy available potential energy from surface measurements due to sparse direct data. They found that oceanic zonal mean and transient eddy available potential energy, as well as kinetic energy, are at least an order of magnitude smaller than those in the atmosphere.

Abstract

On the basis of extensive global data sets the total amounts of internal, potential, latent, and kinetic energy in the world oceans and atmosphere are estimated and compared for annual mean and seasonal conditions. Next, an expression for the available gravitational potential energy in the oceans is derived. The computed amounts of zonal mean and transient eddy available potential energy and the amount of kinetic energy present in the oceans are found to be much smaller (at least 1 order of magnitude) than those in the atmosphere. Because of the sparseness of directly measured subsurface values, the estimates of the kinetic energy and the transient eddy available potential energy were obtained by extrapolation from the corresponding values measured at the ocean surface. The fact that relatively large density variations are found only in the upper few hundred meters of the oceans and the greater stability of the oceans are the basic reasons for the generally small values of the potential and kinetic energy in the oceans compared with those in the atmosphere.