Earth ID: 3093

Average Clear-sky Net Radiant Flux (WMS)

Visualizations by Horace Mitchell Released on February 1, 2005

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 average amount of reflection and absorption is critical to the climate, because the absorbed energy heats up the Earth until it is radiated away as thermal radiation. This animation shows the monthly clear-sky average net radiant flux from July, 2002 through June, 2004 as measured by the CERES instrument. This is the incoming radiation minus the outgoing reflected or thermal energy given off by areas of the Earth when the sky is cloud-free. Regions in red and yellow have a net incoming flux and are being heated. Regions in blue have a net outgoing flux and are being cooled. Regions in black are in rough equilibrium. Summertime oceans are heated the most, while high latitude winter regions are cooled the most, probably because of the longer winter nights. Note that the Earth's ice sheets are almost always regions of cooling. On average, the heating and cooling amounts must balance, or the Earth will change temperature and the climate will change.

This is the legend for the clear-sky net radiant flux animation, indicating the magnitude of the energy flux. Positive values are incoming and negative values are outgoing.

For More Information

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

Visualization Credits

Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC): Lead Animator
Eric Sokolowsky (GST): Animator
Bruce A. Wielicki (NASA/LaRC): 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/3093

Data Used:

Aqua/CERES/Net Radiant Flux

2002/07/01-2004/06/30

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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.

Dates of Data Used:
2002/07/01-2004/06/30

This item is part of this series:
WMS

Keywords:
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Atmosphere >> Atmospheric Radiation >> Net Radiation
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Atmosphere >> Atmospheric Radiation >> Radiative Flux
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