Objectives:


As a core part of the EEI assessment, the submission of individual data sets started at the beginning of 2021. All the ocean heat content data and the TOA radiation data have been collected with similar data formats to ease the intercomparison. The data is now freely available here: https://www.gewex-eei.org/. First analysis from different groups are on-going. This workshop seeks to engage the wider community in using the available data for intercomparison and to participate in the EEI assessment.

The objective of the workshop is to foster the wider EEI community effort along the main lines of the GDAP assessment. This first workshop will enable to share among the community the first results on the EEI assessment, to identify the key elements that need to be worked out to better understand the sources of the spread among EEI estimates and to exchange on how to improve the estimates of EEI, their uncertainty and variability. The workshop will also serve as a place for discussion to identify the main challenges that the community will have to face in the coming decade to estimate the EEI and its variability with a better accuracy and a better precision.

 

Topics addressed during the workshop include:

1)      Status of the different EEI records and their associated uncertainty

2)      Sources of uncertainty in different EEI estimates

3)      Causes for the spread in EEI records

4)      Time variability in EEI records including trends

5)      Regional earth energy budget, regional ocean heat uptake, regional ocean heat content

 

 

Considering the complementarity of the different science communities (among the satellite radiometry community, the ocean in situ community, the ocean reanalysis community and the satellite altimetry and space gravimetry community) providing insights on the EEI, this workshop presents an opportunity to explore joint solutions with a broader view, and to address key issues including:

  • What are the new key climate science questions that rely on EEI estimates and what is the precision and accuracy in EEI that is needed to address them?
  • What are the new challenges for the observing system to meet required precision and accuracy in EEI to answer science questions? How should we address these challenges?
  • For each technique that allows to estimate the EEI (i.e., in situ technique, satellite geodesy technique, satellite radiometry technique) can we identify all the sources of uncertainty and can we provide a comprehensive estimate of the uncertainty to build a comprehensive error budget? If not, what are the key challenges to be addressed?
  • Can we explain the differences between different estimates of the EEI derived from the same measurements (e.g., from in situ data or from reanalyses)?
  • Can we explain the differences across different estimates of the EEI derived from different techniques?
  • Do new algorithms and new advancements allowing to reduce the uncertainty in EEI estimates for each technique exist?
  • Can we provide an estimate of the mean 2002-2020 EEI and the 2005-2020 EEI trend with associated uncertainty that is consistent across the different techniques?
  • In the future do we need new types of instruments to measure the EEI with higher accuracy and precision?
  • Do current observing systems provide sufficient measurements to explain the EEI change? What analytical methods exits and are needed to interpret change in EEI?
  • In the future, can we take advantage of all available data from the different techniques and propose an optimized estimate of the EEI and its uncertainty based on observations only? What would be the best strategy?
  • At regional scale, what is the effective spatial and temporal resolution we can achieve in Ocean heat content estimates from the in situ technique and from the space geodetic technique? Could we improve the spatial and temporal coverage by combining the in situ and the space geodetic technique?
  • How do we strengthen the collaboration between the five critical science communities: (ocean in situ, space radiometry, space geodesy, reanalysis communities, and surface energy flux) to reduce the uncertainty in EEI estimates at all time scales?

The expected outcome of the workshop is to define an action plan for the future and converge on recommendations from the Scientific Community. A round table discussion is planned to cover the aforementioned seed-questions.