Earth  ID: 3095

Average Total-sky Incoming Solar 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 average incoming solar radiation from July, 2002 through June, 2004 as measured by the CERES instrument. This average data set is constant in longitude because of the Earth's rotation, but clearly shows the seasonal cycle as the sun heats the Northern Hemisphere more in summer than in winter. Note that the polar regions are abnormally bright in the local summer and dark in the local winter because whole day is either light or dark in those seasons.
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This animation shows the monthly average total-sky incoming solar flux from CERES for July 2002 through June 2004.

This product is available through our Web Map Service.
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This is the legend for the total-sky incoming solar flux animation, indicating the magnitude of the energy flux.

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/3095

Data Used:
Aqua/CERES/Incoming Solar Radiation
2002/07/01-2004/06/30
Data from SORCE for the flux magnitude at the Earth's orbit, coupled with solar incidence angles based on CERES measurement locations and times
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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 >> Incoming Solar Radiation
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Atmosphere >> Atmospheric Radiation >> Solar Irradiance
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Sun-earth Interactions >> Solar Activity >> Solar Irradiance
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