heat fluxes), ocean surface wind stress, and state variables used to estimate them, are
Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) and Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) influencing
weather and climate. This paper describes an observational strategy for producing 3-hourly,
25-km (and an aspirational goal of hourly at 10-km) heat flux and wind stress fields over the
global, ice-free ocean with breakthrough 1-day random uncertainty of 15 W m–2 and a bias …