Outgoing Longwave Flux Compared to Clouds (WMS)

  • Released Tuesday, June 21, 2005
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The Earth's climate is determined by energy transfer from the sun to the Earth's land, oceans, and atmosphere. As the Earth rotates, the sun lights up only part of the Earth at a time, and some of that incoming solar energy is reflected and some is absorbed, depending on type of area it lights. The amount of reflection and absorption is critical to the climate. An instrument named CERES orbits the Earth every 99 minutes and measures the reflected solar energy. This animation shows the outgoing thermal radiation measured by CERES during 29 orbits on June 20 and 21 of 2003 over global infrared cloud images. Thermal radiation is longwave radiation and depends on the temperature of the earth, with the most intense radiation coming from the warmest regions and the least from cold clouds in the atmosphere. Although cold clouds and the cold Antarctic night regions can be seen in this data, the Earth radiates pretty uniformly in the longwave bands because the atmosphere distributes the heat of the sun to the whole planet.

This animation shows 29 orbits (2 days) of outgoing longwave radiation, form June 20-21, 2003. The measurements are superimposed over a global infrared cloud cover composite from the same period.

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This is the legend for the outgoing longwave radiation, indicating the magnitudes of the thermal energy flux.

This is the legend for the outgoing longwave radiation, indicating the magnitudes of the thermal energy flux.

For More Information

See http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/ceres/ASDceres.html

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Tuesday, June 21, 2005.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:56 PM EDT.

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