Images & Animations
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Credit
A portion of the sunlight that enters the Earth system is reflected back into space, while the remaining portion of the sunlight is absorbed by the Earth system and stored as heat; some is absorbed in the atmosphere and some is absorbed in the lands and oceans. A percentage of this stored heat is emitted by the Earth system back into space in the form of longwave energy. The term "outgoing longwave radiation" refers to the sum total of all the longwave electromagnetic energy, or infrared radiation at wavelengths ranging from 5 to 100 micrometers, that escapes from the top of the Earth's atmosphere back into space. The image above is a false-color map showing the amount of longwave energy (in Watts per square meter) that was emitted by the Earth system for the given month(s). In the image, the brighter yellow and orange regions show where more heat is emitted, while purple and blue regions show intermediate values, and white regions are lower values. Notice that most heat is escaping from the world's equatorial and desert regions. Notice also the tropical heat transported northeastward by the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean.
Metadata
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Sensor
Terra/CERES, ERBS/ERBE, NOAA 9/ERBE, NOAA 10/ERBE
