RE: Relative importance of energy transport into the Arctic via atmospheric or oceanic processes.
I have just popped into this thread, so please forgive me if anything I say below has already been voiced further up the thread.
Taken as an annual average, virtually no parts of the planet are in radiative balance. In equatorial regions, the energy contained within the incoming solar radiation considerably exceeds that contained within the outgoing long wave radiation, whereas at high latitudes, the converse holds true. The overall planetary balancing act is performed by poleward (often referred to as meridional) energy transfer by the atmosphere and by oceanic currents.
My memory
(a fickle beast at the best of times) suggested that, as regards energy flows into the Arctic, the atmosphere transported roughly twice as much energy as the oceans. Thirty minutes spent flicking through my text books failed to reveal the source for this "memory", so it was over to Mr Google.
This article, titled "Meridional energy transport in the coupled atmosphere–ocean system" may help...
https://www.princeton.edu/~gkv/papers/Vallis_FarnetiQJ09.pdfThe relevant text in the Introduction reads as follows...
" The overall picture is that at very low latitudes the polewards energy transport in the ocean exceeds that of the atmosphere, but in mid-latitudes the atmospheric transport is two or three times that of the ocean."I hope that might help to provide some clarity to the ongoing debate.
For further background reading, one could do worse than to peruse this paper titled "The large-scale energy budget of the Arctic" ...
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/trenberth.papers/2006JD008230.pdfAmongst the co-authors of that paper, many (most?, all?) of the readers of this thread would recognise the names Mark Serreze, Andrew Slater and Kevin Trenberth.
Of perhaps more interest as regards the effect of diminishing Arctic sea ice, one could look at the paper called: "The impact of Arctic sea ice on the Arctic energy budget and on the climate of the Northern mid-latitudes on the Arctic Energy budget", which is here...
https://epic.awi.de/30245/1/fulltext.pdf