Earth ID: 30370

Monthly Reflected Shortwave Radiation

Released on October 24, 2013

There is a newer version of this story located here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30604

If you look at Mars in the night sky, the planet is little more than a glowing dot. From Mars, Earth would have the same star-like appearance. What gives the planets this light? Do they shine like a star? No. The light is mostly reflected sunlight. These images show how much sunlight Earth reflects. Bright parts of Earth like snow, ice, and clouds, reflect the most light; dark surfaces, like the oceans, reflect less light. Earth's average temperature is determined by the balance between how much sunlight Earth reflects, how much it absorbs, and how much heat it gives off. These maps show monthly reflected-shortwave radiation from July 2006 to the present, from the Fast Longwave And Shortwave Radiative Fluxes, or FLASHFlux, Time Interpolation and Spatial Averaging (TISA) data product. The product contains daily observations collected by the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) sensors on NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites. The colors in the map show the amount of shortwave energy (in Watts per square meter) that was reflected by the Earth system. The brighter, whiter regions show where more sunlight is reflected, while green regions show intermediate values, and blue regions are lower values.

Newer Version

For More Information

http://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/Search.html?datasetId=CERES_SWFLUX_M

Credits

Marit Jentoft-Nilsen: Visualizer
Jesse Allen (Sigma Space Corporation): Visualizer

Based on imagery by Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory, based on FLASHFlux data. FLASHFlux data are produced using CERES observations convolved with MODIS measurements from both the Terra and Aqua satellite. Data provided by the FLASHFlux team, NASA Langley Research Center.

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Missions:
Aqua
Terra

Data Used:

Aqua/CERES

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.

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Terra/CERES/Reflected Solar Radiation

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CERES/Fast Longwave And SHortwave Radiative Fluxes also referred to as: FLASHFlux

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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.

This item is part of this series:
NASA Earth Observations

Keywords:
SVS >> HDTV
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Atmosphere >> Atmospheric Radiation >> Shortwave Radiation
SVS >> Hyperwall
NASA Science >> Earth
SVS >> Presentation

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