Importance of Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI) On

context of Climate Change

A Group Discussion based on the paper An imperative to

monitor Earth's energy imbalance, Nature Climate
Change, volume 6, pages 138–144 (2016)
 Contents

• What is EEI?
• Factors of EEI
• Flow of EEI
• Symptoms of EEI
• EEI linked to climate change
• Monitoring of EEI
• What are the measures EEI inferring for the future climate?
 Earth’s Energy Budget
• Climate is very much about exchanges of energy in the Earth System, in particular in the form of
heat.
• Earth’s climate system balances the energy budget at three levels:
1. Top of the Atmosphere (TOA)
2. Atmosphere
3. Surface of the Earth

Equilibrium in all three stages

on an average over a long
time scale.
 Earth’s Energy Imbalance(IPCC AR5)
Energy coming in TOA (340) ≠ Energy out from TOA (239+100=339)
Energy absorbed in Atmosphere (79+84+20+398=581) ≈ Energy out from Atmosphere (239+342=581)
Energy coming on Surface (161+342=503) ≠ Energy out from Surface (84+20+398=502)
Surface imbalance :(503-502) = 1 (High)

Earth’s Energy imbalance!!

• Earth's energy imbalance is the difference between the amount of solar energy absorbed by Earth and the
amount of energy the planet radiates to space as heat.
 Factors causing the Imbalance
• The balance between the energy coming to the earth and releases back to space make the climate of the
earth.
• Anything those alter the radiation received from the sun or lost to space are known as factors for
imbalance.

Solar Sun-earth’s
Volcanic Anthropogenic
orbital m
constant eruptions
geometry • These factors have huge
impact on earth’s climate,
External sometimes these are
Imbalance known as climate
Internal forcings.
• ENSO
• PDO
• MJO
Atmosphere
 External factors
• On timescales of a millennium and longer, changes in the character of the Earth's orbit around the Sun can
significantly affect the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of incoming solar energy.
• Solar constant for a 11 year time period. Affects very little on overall climate ( magnitude < <1% over past 20 yrs.)

• Volcanic eruptions results in a 5 to 10% reduction in the direct solar beam, largely through scattering as a
result of the highly reflective sulphuric acid aerosols.
• Large eruptions, such as the Mount Pinatubo (Philippines) eruption in 1991, can bring about a global cooling of
up to 0.3°C lasting for up to 2 years.

Santer, B. D. et al.(2014)
 External factors
• The main concern of the external factor is the changing of atmospheric composition by human activities.

• Carbon di-oxide & other GHGs

• aerosols

• If other climate forcings were

unchanged, increasing Earth's
radiation to space by 0.5
W/m2 would require reducing
CO2 by ~30 ppm to 360 ppm.

Aerosols direct, indirect & semi direct

impact.
 Radiative forcing
• It is an index of importance of any factor responsible for climate change.
• Radiative forcing due to a given component is a measure of its influence in imbalance in Earth’s energy
budget.
• Expressed as W/m2.

• Based on time scale and the nature of impact

Positive impact
forcings. Warming
w

Climate
Radiative c
change
forcing
Negative impact Cooling
forcings.
 Flow of EEI
• Global ocean acts as a heat sink.

• The vast majority (>90%) of the excess energy is absorbed by the ocean, with much smaller amounts
going into heating of the land, atmosphere and ice cover.
 Flow of EEI
• Flowing of EEI over the entire earth is governed by its heat capacity of atmosphere, land and most importantly vast
ocean.

Atmosphere Land Ice sheets

• Not able to store • Plays a much smaller role • Ice sheets over Antarctica and
much heat. in the storage of heat than Greenland respond slowly
• its entire heat the oceans. because the penetration of
capacity • the variability of surface heat occurs primarily through
corresponds to air temperatures over conduction.
that of the top land is a factor of two to • the change in effective heat
2.5 m of the six times greater than that capacity from year to year is
ocean. over the oceans. small

• To track the increase in Earth system energy content over time, it is essential to have a
comprehensive measurements of temperature, and the associated heat content, throughout our
vast oceans.
 The symptoms of EEI
• Positive imbalance invites various Symptoms:
global surface temperature rise,
reductions in snow and ice cover
sea level rise
unwanted drought and flooding etc.
 EEI on context of global climate change
• observational studies and computer based simulations suggest that there is a weak relation between Earth’s energy
imbalance(EEI) and surface temperature change on decadal scale.

• But there is a strong correlation between the Earth’s energy imbalance(EEI) and Ocean heat storage change on
decadal scale.

• Changes in ocean heat content provide a much more reliable indicator of EEI.
 Monitoring of the EEI
There are four approaches that can potentially be used to estimate the absolute value of
EEI and its time-evolution:
• Magnitude and variations in the radiative components at TOA
• Estimates of energy exchanges at the Earth's surface
• Temporal rates of change of OHC and other climate system components
• Simulations of EEI from state-of-the-art climate modeling.

Each of the methods for estimating EEI has strengths and weaknesses, as discussed
by von Schuckmann et al. The most promising strategy for advancing our monitoring
capability lies in efforts to combine satellite-based monitoring of variations in
EEI with estimates of ocean heat content change.
 Monitoring of the EEI…..
New observations:
An exciting advance under development is
the extension of the Argo array of robotic
profiling floats to sample the full ocean
depth. Argo has revolutionized our ability to
monitor changes in ocean heat and
freshwater content, since its inception in the
early 2000s. However, current generation
floats can only sample the upper 2km –
roughly 50% of the open ocean depth. New,
deeper float technologies are currently in the
testing phase and research is being carried
out into what this deep array might look like.
 Future scope

• In order to increase our ability to predict climate and develop mitigation strategies, it is
an imperative to track EEI.

• To achieve the highest possible spatio-temporal resolution, we must combine satellite

estimates of EEI variations from TOA radiation measurements with estimates of the
absolute value of EEI derived from the time-derivative of OHC.

• To meet this goal, future priorities must include the sustained continuation of the global
ocean hydrographic observing system and its extension into polar regions, marginal seas
and the deep oceans below 2,000 m depth.
Thank you
 Back up slides:

• ELNINO-ENSO: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a coupled ocean–atmosphere phenomenon in the

Pacific Ocean that has widespread meteorological and ecological impacts on the Earth's surface.
• As humans put more and more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, the Earth warms.
• El Niño refers to a short-term period of warm ocean surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, basically
stretching from South America towards Australia. When an El Niño happens, that region is warmer than
usual. If the counterpart La Niña occurs, the region is colder than usual. Often times, neither an El Niño or La
Niña is present and the waters are a normal temperature. This would be called a “neutral” state.
• The ocean waters switch back and forth between El Niño and La Niña every few years. Not regularly, like a
pendulum, but there is a pattern of oscillation. And regardless of which part of the cycle we are in (El Niño or
La Niña), there are consequences for weather around the world.
• El Niño cycles have been known for a long time. Their influence around the world has also been known for
almost 100 years. It was in the 1920s that the impact of El Niño on places as far away as the Indian Ocean
were identified. Having observed the effects of El Niño for a century, scientists had the perspective to
understand something might be changing.
• Dr. Fasullo ”We can’t say from this study whether more or fewer El Niños will form in the future — or
whether the El Niños that do form will be stronger or weaker in terms of ocean temperatures in the Pacific.
But we can say that an El Niño of a given magnitude that forms in the future is likely to have more
influence over our weather than if the same El Niño formed 50 years ago”.
Contd..