A First Look at GEWEX's Integrated Global Water and Energy Product

Satellite and in-situ observations archived as part of GEWEX's Global Data and Assessments Panel (GDAP) are approaching 30 years with which climate variability and trends can be examined. While the GEWEX products (e.g. ISCCP, GPCP, SRB, SeaFlux LandFlux) form the basis for estimating the Earth's water and energy fluxes in a number of recent publications, the actual products have not been examined much at regional and temporal scales at which connections among these variables and physical processes that connect them tend to manifest themselves. Instead, recent publications have focused only on long-term global scales at which water and energy closure arguments could be invoked. To accelerate research related to the processes that govern water and energy exchanges, the GEWEX GDAP panel is creating an Integrated Water and Energy product that brings together the Clouds, Aerosol, Radiation, turbulent fluxes and precipitation in a consistent manner. By imposing uniform assumptions across the suite of products, the Integrated Product aims to eliminate discontinuities introduced by inconsistencies and allows users to focus on fine scale structures available at 1 degree, 3 hourly time scales from this product. The talk will introduce the product and present initial results from flux comparisons.