+ Visit NASA.gov + Advanced Search   + About the Server   + Animation List   + How to Use the Server   + RSS Feeds Previous Animation Next Animation Net Radiation Flux Compared to Clouds (WMS) 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 amount of reflection and absorption is critical to the climate. An instrument named CERES orbits the Earth every 99 minutes and measures the reflected solar energy. This animation shows the net radiation flux within view of CERES during 29 orbits on June 20 and 21 of 2003. The net flux is the incoming solar flux minus the outgoing reflected (shortwave) and thermal (longwave) radiation. If the flux in a region is positive, the Earth is being warmed by the sun in that region, while cooling regions have a negative flux. It is clear from the animation that the most intensive heating occurs in ocean regions with few clouds, while the second most intense are cloud-free regions over vegetated land areas. Deserts, cloudy regions, and ice caps all reflect enough solar radiation to reduce the amount of heating. Regions of night are, of course, cooling regions because there is no incoming flux at all.    This animation shows net radiation flux corresponding to 29 orbits (2 days) of CERES measurements, from June 20-21, 2003. This data is calculated from CERES outgoing longwave and shortwave measurements, along with a corresponding calculated incoming solar flux. The measurements are superimposed over a global infrared cloud cover composite from the same period. Duration: 29.0 seconds Available formats:   640x320 (29.97 fps) MPEG-1   5 MB   320x160     PNG           73 KB   160x80       PNG           21 KB   80x40         PNG           6 KB   1024x512   Frames How to play our movies This product is available through our Web Map Service.   Click here to learn more.    This is the legend for the net radiation flux animation, indicating the magnitudes of total incoming or outgoing energy flux. Available formats:   320 x 90           PNG   1 KB Animation Number: 3177 Animators: Horace Mitchell (SVS) (Lead)   Eric Sokolowsky (SVS) Completed: 2005-06-21 Scientist: Bruce A. Wielicki (NASA/LaRC) Instruments: GOES-9/Imager   Aqua/CERES   SORCE/TIM   GOES-12/Imager   GOES-10/Imager   Meteosat-7/VISSR Data sets: Cloud Cover   Net Radiant Flux Data Collected: 2003/06/20-2003/06/22 Series: WMS Keywords: GCMD >> EARTH SCIENCE >> Atmosphere >> Atmospheric Radiation >> Net Radiation GCMD >> EARTH SCIENCE >> Atmosphere >> Atmospheric Radiation >> Radiative Flux GCMD >> EARTH SCIENCE >> Atmosphere >> Clouds >> Cloud Top Temperature More Information on this topic available at: http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/ceres/ASDceres.html Google Earth KML file is available here. DEPC Metadata is available here.     Please give credit for this item to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio Back to Top + Privacy Policy and Important Notices + Reproduction Guidelines NASA Official: SVS Contact: Curator: