Conveners: Seiji Kato, Kevin Trenberth, Karina von Schuckmann, Tristan L’Ecyuer

Session Description:

Earth energy imbalance is the fundamental measure of the rate at which earth’s climate changes. Solar radiation absorbed by the Earth is converted into different forms of energy. The goal of this session is to bring together observation and modeling experts and data users of ocean and atmospheric, reanalysis, air-sea fluxes, ocean heat content, climate models, atmospheric radiation and sea level to better synthesize all the information available on the energy flows through the climate system and inventories of where it resides. Papers on fluxes of energy at top-of-atmosphere and the surface, and analyses of changes in storage of energy and its movement around are encouraged. Especially, ways to improve ocean heat content analyses and evaluation of the closure of the energy budget of various forms of energy are included. Assessments of model and reanalyses performance, observational results, and insights on Earth energy imbalance are encouraged.