Global ocean latent and sensible heat fluxes from the maximum entropy production framework from 1988-2017

The global long-term ocean surface heat fluxes were revisited using an enhanced Maximum Entropy Production (MEP) framework. The ocean heat storage and four empirical Bowen ratio formulas were employed to refine the MEP method's estimation. Utilizing the improved MEP method alongside multi-source remote sensing observation data as the driving input, we generated a high-precision global estimate of ocean latent and sensible heat flux from 1988 to 2017. This new dataset achieved a coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.79 and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 16 W·m^-2 when compared against 129 global distributed buoy stations. The newly derived latent heat flux dataset outperformed the existing mainstream heat fluxes products, including J-OFURO3, ERA5, MERRA2, and OAFlux.The dataset files are all in NetCDF (.nc) format, with a monthly temporal resolution and a spatial resolution of 0.25-degree, covering the period from 1988 to 2017.