The NEWS Water and Energy Cycle Climatology Project (Invited)

NASA's Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS) program fosters collaborative research towards improved quantification and prediction of water and energy cycle consequences of climate change. In order to measure change, it is first necessary to describe current conditions. The goal of the NEWS Water and Energy Cycle Climatology group is to develop "state of the global water cycle" and "state of the global energy cycle" assessments based on data from modern ground and space based observing systems and data integrating models. The project is a multi-institutional collaboration with at least 20 active contributors. This presentation will summarize our progress towards the stated goal, which includes seasonal (monthly) climatologies of water and energy fluxes over land, ocean, and atmosphere at continental and ocean basin scales. The ability to close the water and energy budgets within the expected uncertainty ranges will be explored, along with the potential for forcing budget closure as a method for refining individual flux estimates.