Science Source

An imperative to monitor Earth's energy imbalance

States the current Earth's energy imbalance (EEI) is mostly caused by human activity, and is driving global warming
States the absolute value of EEI represents the most fundamental metric defining the status of global climate change, and will be more useful than using global surface temperature
Asserts EEI can best be estimated from changes in ocean heat content, complemented by radiation measurements from space
Asserts that the following are crucial to refinging future EEI estimates: sustained observations from the Argo array of autonomous profiling floats and further development of the ocean observing system to sample the deep ocean, marginal seas and sea ice regions
Asserts that combining multiple measurements in an optimal way holds considerable promise for estimating EEI and thus assessing the status of global climate change, improving climate syntheses and models, and testing the effectiveness of mitigation actions