The heat balance for the Black Sea is estimated, based on classical bulk formulas, using the U.S. National Meteorological Center atmospheric analysis data and different types of sea surface temperature data. The main focus in the study is on the sensitivity of the heat fluxes to the input data. The contribution of the short-period variability to the heat flux components is evaluated. It is shown that the use of monthly averaged atmospheric data produces substantial inconsistencies in the heat flux estimates due to inaccurate calculation of the nonlinear terms in the bulk formulas. Inventory of the past estimates for the Black Sea heat flux components and intercomparison with the ones calculated in this paper are carried out. Error estimates for experiments using independent sea surface temperature data are analyzed. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1995