/sci/ - Science & Math

>>8759562
What does the United Nations IPCC have to say about the uncertainty in their estimates of energy imbalance?

UN IPCC AR4
Uncertainty of 20 Watts/ m^2
3233% error range! (for 0.6 Watts/m^2 flux)
“Unfortunately, the total surface heat and water fluxes are not well observed. Normally, they are inferred from observations of other fields, such as surface temperature and winds. Consequently, the uncertainty in the observational estimate is large – of the order of tens of watts per square metre [20 W m-2] for the heat flux, even in the zonal mean.”

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-3-2-1.html

UN IPCC AR5
“The overall uncertainty of the annually averaged global ocean mean for each term is expected to be in the range 10 to 20%. In the case of the latent heat flux term, this corresponds to an uncertainty of up to 20 W m–2. In comparison, changes in global mean values of individual heat flux components expected as a result of anthropogenic climate change since 1900 are at the level of <2 W m–2 (Pierce et al., 2006).”

https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter03_FINAL.pdf