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  1. Home
  2. Essential Climate Variables
  3. Ocean Surface Heat Flux

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Data Sources

ECV Products and Requirements


Ocean Surface Heat Flux

Surface heat flux is exchange of heat, per unit area, crossing the surface between the ocean and the atmosphere. It consists of the turbulent and the radiative components. These fluxes are major contributors to the energy and moisture budgets, and are largely responsible for thermodynamic coupling the ocean and atmosphere at global and regional scales, and variability of these fluxes is in part related to large-scale variability in weather and climate patterns.
  Domain: Ocean
  Subdomain: Physical
  Scientific Area: Physical properties
  Product:  Latent Heat Flux; Sensible Heat Flux; Radiative Heat Flux

 


Sensible and Latent Heat Fluxes

Figure: Mean a) Latent and b) Sensible Heat Fluxes for 2017.

Source: http://oaflux.whoi.edu/heatflux.html.

EU Copernicus

 

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