[OLD TEMPLATE] Ocean heat content (OHC) and earth energy imbalance (EEI)

The Ocean Heat Content ("OHC") is estimated from the measurement of the thermal expansion of the ocean based on differences between the total sea-level content derived from altimetry measurements and the mass content derived from gravimetry data, noted “altimetry-gravimetry”. The Earth Energy Imbalance ("EEI") indicator is derived from the temporal variations of the ocean heat content, i.e. by calculating its derivative (called the ocean heat uptake).

The product is delivered in two distinct files. The main one contains the essential variables like Global Ocean Heat Content, Earth Energy Imbalance time series and their relative variance-covariance matrices. The second file contains more variables than the first product like time series of Ocean Mass, Sea Level et Steric Sea Level change grids. It also includes additional variables that were not used for the Global ocean heat content calculation, such as the Global mean of ocean mass, Global mean sea level and Global mean steric sea level time series, but which may nevertheless be of interest to users.

Users will therefore be able to find, among other things :

• the regional map of the Ocean Heat Content trends (see image associated with this metadata sheet),
• global ocean heat content change time series (representative of the globe within the extent of data availability),
• earth energy imbalance time series (from global OHC filtered-out from signals lower than 3 years),
• the uncertainties associated with these two datasets.