Eddy-induced meridional heat transport in the ocean

A global ocean data synthesis product at eddy‐permitting resolution from Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II (ECCO2) project are used to estimate the oceanic eddy heat transport. We show that in a number of locations the time‐mean eddy heat transport constitutes a considerable portion of the total time‐mean heat transport, in particular, in the tropics, in the Southern Ocean and in the Kuroshio Current. This research demonstrates that the variability of the eddy heat transport is a significant contributor to the variability of the total heat transport and globally it explains about 1/3 of its variance. Eddies are also found to explain a significant portion of the seasonal‐interannual heat transport variance.