About this workshop

Agenda (PDF)
Organizers: Maria Hakuba (JPL/Caltech), James Reagan (NOAA/NCEI), Patrick Taylor (NASA Langley), Benoit Meyssignac (CNES/LEGOS)

Measuring and understanding EEI, its time variability, and long-term trend is essential to understanding the current state of our planet and predicting its future evolution. Under its Data and Analysis Panel (GDAP), the World Climate Research Programme’s (WCRP) core project Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) initiated the “Earth Energy Imbalance assessment”. The GEWEX-EEI assessment’s objective is to evaluate the quality and the uncertainty of current EEI estimates. It focuses mainly on two sources of data: 1) observations of the TOA radiative fluxes from space radiometry and 2) observations of the ocean heat content from in situ data, satellite altimetry, space gravimetry and ocean reanalysis. The surplus energy is not entirely stored in the ocean, about 9% of the energy is stored in other components of the Earth system such as the cryosphere, the continents and the atmosphere. These other energy stores are also evaluated in the framework of the assessment.

The approach adopted in the GEWEX-EEI assessment is to design an intercomparison of EEI estimates and associated uncertainty. This intercomparison enables progress on:

1. Assessing the quality of different EEI records
2. Understanding the sources of uncertainty in different EEI estimates
3. Understanding the causes for the spread in EEI estimates
4. Quantifying and understanding EEI time variability including trends
5. Improving regional earth energy and heat uptake estimates

The expected outcome of the workshop is to define an action plan for the future and converge on recommendations from the Scientific Community.

Main Goals for this workshop:

1. Assess closure of Earth’s energy budget from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean.
2. Advance our understanding of the causes of ocean heat content and energy balance variations.
3. Explain the spread across EEI estimates; derive and recommend methods that reduce and quantify EEI uncertainty.
4. Identify gaps, challenges and opportunities for the EEI observing system of the future.

EEI assessment Workshop Themes include:

Theme 1: Science of Earth's Energy Imbalance

• What is driving change in EEI, heat content and Earth’s radiation?
• Why is EEI increasing more than Earth System Models project?
• The impact of heat distribution and SST patterns on EEI variations
• Total budget constraints on Earth’s Climate Sensitivity
• Energy and water cycle linkages

Theme 2: Advances in estimating Ocean Heat Content and Earth’s heat inventory

• In-situ, satellite and model estimates of ocean heat content
• Hybrid and machine learning methods
• Uncertainty quantification
• Observational needs to close Earth’s heat inventory
• The changing heat inventory and its implications

Theme 3: Earth radiation at the TOA, surface and in the atmosphere

• Understanding EEI variability and long-term change
• Scrutinizing climate forcings and feedbacks using models and observations
• Constraining climate predictions with EEI and Radiation data

Theme 4: Future Ocean, ERB & EEI Observing Systems

• Observational and Scientific Gaps and Challenges
• New missions, concepts, and continuity
• Next US Decadal Survey

Here you can find the recommendations and workshop report of the 1st GEWEX Earth Energy Imbalance Assessment Workshop: https://www.wcrp-esa-eeia-2023.org/workshop-report

Meeting Logistics

For a full schedule, please view the agenda (PDF)

Venue: TBD

Dates: June 1-5, 2026, 8:30am – 6:00pm, Pacific Time Zone (PT).

Format: hybrid

Airports: Burbank-Hollywood Airport (BUR) is the closest airport to Pasadena. Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is the main airport in the county.

Accommodation tips: TBD

Local area information: TBD