Earth's Changing Water and Energy Cycle

This book offers a thorough exploration of the observation of Earth's water–energy cycle, a foundational aspect of climate science. It features a collection of up-to-date articles that provide insights into current estimates of the Earth’s water and energy fluxes, based on satellite observations, atmosphere–ocean reanalyses, and global coupled atmosphere–ocean model simulations. The book deepens our understanding of the role of clouds in the energy cycle, focusing particularly on tropical clouds and their responses to surface warming patterns, which influence global warming. It also examines the connection between tropical clouds and deep convection in the tropics. Furthermore, the volume identifies key priorities for developing an integrated and optimized observation system for Earth's water–energy cycle. It highlights the challenges currently faced in monitoring and modeling this cycle to improve predictions on annual to multi-decadal timescales.

Reprinted from Surveys in Geophysics, Special Issue: Earth's Changing Water and Energy Cycle, Vol. 45, 2024.

Benoit Meyssignac is a researcher at the Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiale (LEGOS) and the French Space National Center (CNES) in Toulouse, France. His work focuses on understanding variations in the global energy-water cycle at both regional and global scales using high-precision geodetic satellite observations and modeling. He studies the processes that drive changes in the Earth’s energy budget, the energy imbalance, and the response of energy-water cycle fluxes to climate change. He is an active leader in the World Climate Research Program’s Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) Earth Energy Imbalance assessment.

Sonia I. Seneviratne specializes in climate extremes and land-climate interactions. Her research focuses on processes that lead to droughts and heatwaves, the impact of land processes and land cover changes on regional climate, and how these are affected by global warming. She uses a combination of climate model experiments and statistical data analysis, drawing on model data, ground observations, and satellite measurements. Sonia I. Seneviratne is a Professor of Land-Climate Dynamics at ETH Zurich.

Rémy Roca has dedicated his career to satellite Earth observations. He gained early experience with geostationary infrared observations as a student and visiting scholar at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. During his postdoctoral fellowship, he expanded his expertise to broadband radiometry for energy budgets and passive microwave observations of water vapor and precipitation, contributing to the Megha-Tropiques Indo-French mission, which he led from 2007 to 2022. His primary interests lie in studying the water cycle in the tropics and using satellite observations to investigate tropical climate dynamics.

Graeme L. Stephens has made significant contributions to understanding Earth's climate system, focusing on the interactions of water and energy and the feedbacks between clouds and the hydrological cycle. He has served as co-chair of the Scientific Steering Group for the Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) project of the World Climate Research Programme and was the principal investigator of NASA's CloudSat mission, which pioneered observations of clouds and precipitation. He continues to play a key role in other NASA missions, including the Libera mission on Earth’s energy balance and the INCUS mission on atmospheric convection. Professor Stephens has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Rossby Medal of the American Meteorological Society, the Mason Gold Medal of the Royal Meteorological Society, and the IAMAS IRC Gold Medal for his contributions to radiation sciences.

Michael Rast studied geology and geoscientific remote sensing at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. He later joined ESA, where he helped define mission and science requirements for Earth observation satellites. After spending a research year at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he earned a doctorate in imaging spectroscopy from space. Following a secondment to the GEO Secretariat in Geneva as a Senior Programme Officer, he led the Science Strategy Office at ESA-ESRIN in Frascati, Italy. In 2017, he became Senior Advisor to the Director of Earth Observation Programmes. Since retiring from ESA in 2022, he has served as Director of Earth Sciences at the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern, Switzerland. Michael Rast is also a Professor of Terrestrial Remote Sensing in the Department of Geography at Ludwig-Maximilians University.