Objectively Analyzed Air–Sea Heat Fluxes for the Global Ice-Free Oceans (1981–2005)

A 25-yr (1981–2005) time series of daily latent and sensible heat fluxes over the global ice-free oceans has been produced by synthesizing surface meteorology obtained from satellite remote sensing and atmospheric model reanalyses outputs. The project, named Objectively Analyzed Air–Sea Fluxes (OAFlux), was developed from an initial study of the Atlantic Ocean that demonstrated that such data synthesis improves daily flux estimates over the basin scale. This paper introduces the 25-yr heat flux analysis and documents variability of the global ocean heat flux fields on seasonal, interannual, decadal, and longer time scales suggested by the new dataset. The study showed that, among all the climate signals…

• WH
  Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• OL
  Ocean Life Institute, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• NO
  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration