Air‐sea heat flux climatologies in the Mediterranean Sea: Surface energy balance and its consistency with ocean heat storage

Abstract

AbstractThis study provides an analysis of the Mediterranean Sea surface energy budget using nine surface heat flux climatologies. The ensemble mean estimation shows that the net downward shortwave radiation (192 ± 19 W m−2) is balanced by latent heat flux (−98 ± 10 W m−2), followed by net longwave radiation (−78 ± 13 W m−2) and sensible heat flux (−13 ± 4 W m−2). The resulting net heat budget (Qnet) is 2 ± 12 W m−2 into the ocean, which appears to be warm biased. The annual‐mean Qnet should be −5.6 ± 1.6 W m−2 when estimated from the observed net transport through the Strait of Gibraltar. To diagnose the uncertainty in nine Qnet climatologies, we constructed Qnet from the heat budget equation by using historic hydrological observations to determine the heat content changes and advective heat flux. We also used the Qnet from a data‐assimilated global ocean state estimation as an additional reference. By comparing with the two reference Qnet estimates, we found that seven products (NCEP 1, NCEP 2, CFSR, ERA‐Interim, MERRA, NOCSv2.0, and OAFlux+ISCCP) overestimate Qnet, with magnitude ranging from 6 to 27 W m−2, while two products underestimate Qnet by −6 W m−2 (JRA55) and −14 W m−2 (CORE.2). Together with the previous warm pool work of Song and Yu (2013), we show that CFSR, MERRA, NOCSv2.0, and OAFlux+ISCCP are warm‐biased not only in the western Pacific warm pool but also in the Mediterranean Sea, while CORE.2 is cold‐biased in both regions. The NCEP 1, 2, and ERA‐Interim are cold‐biased over the warm pool but warm‐biased in the Mediterranean Sea.