The Impact of Aerosols on Atmospheric Warming - Version 1
Bright and dark aerosols, combined with solar heating, create different effects in heating the atmosphere and heating the surface of the Earth. This animation zooms into the INDOEX region showing aerosol and solar reflectance (albedo) data from the Terra satellite, then displays how these inputs generate warming of the atmosphere (Atmospheric Forcing - red regions) and cooling of the surface (Surface Forcing - dark regions). Areas of missing data (due to clouds, etc.) are either black or transparent.
Zoom-in to the INDOEX region and fade-in aerosol data along with its resulting effects.
Fade in the aerosol data over the INDOEX region.
Aerosols can increase the albedo (reflectivity) of the Earth.
But aerosols also warm the atmosphere...
And the higher albedo cools the surface.
Color bar for atmospheric forcing
Video slate image reads, " Zoom in to Aerosol Effects over INDOEX: Version 1".
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Scientific Visualization Studio
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Animator
- Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
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Scientists
- Veerabhadran Ramanathan (Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
- Anand K. Inamdar (Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
Release date
This page was originally published on Monday, August 13, 2001.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:57 PM EDT.
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Datasets used in this visualization
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[Terra: CERES]
ID: 114The CERES instrument aboard many Earth-orbiting satellites records the flow of reflected Solar radiation and reprocessed longwave radiation in the Earth's radiation budget.
See all pages that use this dataset -
[Terra: MODIS]
ID: 116
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.