 Solution

The low-latitude regions of Earth absorb more incoming solar radiation than they emit as outgoing thermal radiation, whereas high latitudes have a net annual radiation deficit. The obliquity of solar incidence and the distribution of daylight create a strong latitude dependence of absorbed solar energy; emitted thermal radiation varies less strongly because terrestrial temperature contrasts are smaller. The terrestrial atmosphere and ocean therefore carry energy from the tropical surplus toward the polar deficits. Otherwise the low latitudes would keep warming and the high latitudes cooling until a different local radiative equilibrium was reached.

For a steady, zonally averaged energy balance, let $R(\varphi )$ be net downward radiation at the top of the terrestrial atmosphere and $H(\varphi )$ the total northward energy transport across latitude $\varphi$. A narrow spherical band and conservation of energy giveThe poleward direction is northward in the Northern Hemisphere and southward in the Southern Hemisphere. Seasonal internal energy storage modifies the instantaneous balance, but not the annual need for poleward redistribution.

Several circulation structures contribute in addition to the transient eddies produced by baroclinic instability of the middle latitudes:

The Brewer-Dobson circulation additionally redistributes energy in the stratosphere, with tropical ascent and extratropical descent, although most total atmospheric heat transport occurs lower down. An Eulerian mean middle-latitude Ferrel cell is thermally indirect and can oppose the poleward transport by eddies; listing every meridional circulation as a direct poleward heat carrier would be incorrect.