Earth  ID: 2230

The Impact of Aerosols on Atmospheric Warming - Version 2

Visualizations by Tom Bridgman Released on August 13, 2001
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.
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Zoom-in to the INDOEX region and fade-in aerosol data along with its resulting effects.
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Fade in the aerosol data over the INDOEX region.
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Aerosols can increase the albedo (reflectivity) of the Earth.
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But aerosols also warm the atmosphere...
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And the higher albedo cools the surface.
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Color bars for all datasets

Visualization Credits

Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Animator
Veerabhadran Ramanathan (Scripps Institution of Oceanography): Scientist
Anand K. Inamdar (Scripps Institution of Oceanography): Scientist
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2230

Mission:
Terra

Data Used:
Terra/CERES
2001/01/01-2001/03/21
The CERES instrument aboard many Earth-orbiting satellites records the flow of reflected Solar radiation and reprocessed longwave radiation in the Earth's radiation budget.
view all stories where this data set is used
Terra/MODIS
2001/01/01-2001/03/21
view all stories where this data set is used
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.

This item is part of this series:
Aerosols and Warming

Keywords:
DLESE >> Atmospheric science
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Atmosphere >> Aerosols
SVS >> CERES
NASA Science >> Earth

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0