Reconstructing the Energy and Water Cycles

Efforts to balance the Earth’s energy budget using observational datasets result in unrealistically large imbalances both within the atmosphere and at the surface where net radiation at the surface tends to significantly exceed the associated turbulent heat fluxes, particularly over the global oceans.  These imbalances arise from the fact that measures of the component energy fluxes are typically derived independently and all have uncertainties. Under NASA’s Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS) we are working with a large team of investigators to reintroduce energy and water cycle closure constraints in modern reconstructions of Earth’s energy budget and water cycle.  The resulting balanced global and regional energy and water cycles provide a resource for studying variations in continental and ocean basin on seasonal to multiyear timescales.