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	Coverage of this dataset spans November 1984 to September 2005.
	The animation features of the Earth Observatory are currently unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience. To view the full temporal span of this dataset, please view the Net Radiation monthly holdings.

Product description: A portion of the sunlight that reaches Earth is absorbed into the system, while some of the light is reflected by our planet back into space. Some of the sunlight that gets absorbed is converted to heat and later emitted by the surface and atmosphere back up into space. The term "net radiation" refers to the total amount of sunlight and heat energy that does not escape from the top of the Earth's atmosphere back into space. More precisely, net radiation is the sum total of shortwave and longwave electromagnetic energy, at wavelengths ranging from 0.3 to 100 micrometers, that remains in the Earth system. The image above is a false-color map showing the net incoming energy (in Watts per square meter) that was contained in the Earth system for the given month(s). Regions of positive net radiation indicate areas of energy surplus in the Earth system (i.e., green regions over the tropics) and areas of negative net radiation signify regions of energy deficit (such as blue regions over high latitudes and the poles). All of the images in this dataset up to and including February 1990 were acquired by the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) sensor and all of the images from March 2000 onward were acquired by the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) sensor aboard NASA's Terra satellite. (Data courtesy ERBE and CERES Projects, NASA LaRC)

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