Analytic radiative‐advective equilibrium as a model for high‐latitude climate

Abstract

Abstract We propose radiative‐advective equilibrium as a basic‐state model for the high‐latitude atmosphere. Temperature profiles are determined by a competition between stabilization by atmospheric shortwave absorption and advective heat flux convergence, and destabilization by surface shortwave absorption. We derive analytic expressions for temperature profiles, assuming power law atmospheric heating profiles as a function of pressure and two‐stream windowed‐gray longwave radiative transfer. We discuss example profiles with and without an atmospheric window and show that the sensitivity of surface temperature to forcing depends on the nature of the forcing, with greatest sensitivity to radiative forcing by increased optical thickness and least sensitivity to increased atmospheric heat transport. These differences in sensitivity of surface temperature to forcing can be explained in terms of a forcing‐dependent lapse‐rate feedback.