Objectives

To date a comprehensive and consistent assessment of Earth's Energy Imbalance (EEI) records has not been carried out. GEWEX-EEI intend to fill this gap by analysing the EEI rercords available and fully document each step of the analysis and related results.

The objectives of this assessment are to make a consistent inter-comparison of EEI products with uncertainties with focus on interannual to longer time scales . The assessment should provide an overview on available data records, collects detailed meta data and provides comparable evaluation results. The results are expected to inform on common robust EEI variability present in all EEI records and also identify inconsistencies of/among data records and provide explanations for inconsistencies.

The assessment will adress the estimation of the EEI, but also Ocean Heat Content (OHC) change and Ocean Heat Uptake (OHU) .

The main sciences questions addressed in the assessment are :

  • What are the uncertainties in the observed mean and temporal changes in EEI for each product? How large are the differences in observed mean and temporal changes in EEI from different products? Are the differences in observed mean and temporal changes within uncertainty limits? What is the degree of homogeneity (breakpoints) and stability of each data record?

  • What is the degree of consistency among the products?

  • Do the OHU records exhibit areas of distinct quality and how can the distinct differences and limitations be explained? What is the quality of OHU products in the lowermost part of the ocean? What is the quality of OHU products at high latitude?

  • What are the differences in quality between satellite products, in situ products and products from reanalysis and are the observed differences significant?

  • How easily can the EEI data records be downloaded, read and understood?

This assessment will last a few years, during which several workshops will be held to include the entire community in the assessment effort. The main outputs of the workshops and the analysis will form the basis of a final assessment report to GEWEX. At any time during the assessment, interesting results will be published in the literature by the authors. At the end, all results will be summarised in a WCRP report on G-EEI delivered to GEWEX for revision and a summary paper to be submitted to publication (inb a journal like BAMS for example).