«Our results demonstrate how synergistic use of satellite TOA radiation observations and recently
improved ocean heat content measurements, with appropriate error estimates, provide critical data for quantifying short - term and longer - term changes in the Earth's net TOA radiation imbalance.
Alternatively, more direct observations of that radiative imbalance would be nice, or better theoretical and observational understanding of the water vapor and cloud feedbacks, or more paleoclimate data which can give us constraints on historical feedbacks, but my guess is that
ocean heat content measurements would be the best near term bet for
improving our understanding of this issue.