Average Clear-Sky Net Radiant Flux

  • Credit

    NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Average Clear-sky Net Radiant Flux (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 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 clear-sky average net radiant flux from July, 2002 through June, 2004 as measured by the CERES instrument. This is the incoming radiation minus the outgoing reflected or thermal energy given off by areas of the Earth when the sky is cloud-free. Regions in red and yellow have a net incoming flux and are being heated. Regions in blue have a net outgoing flux and are being cooled. Regions in black are in rough equilibrium. Summertime oceans are heated the most, while high latitude winter regions are cooled the most, probably because of the longer winter nights. Note that the Earth's ice sheets are almost always regions of cooling. On average, the heating and cooling amounts must balance, or the Earth will change temperature and the climate will change.

This animation shows the monthly average clear-sky net radiant flux from CERES for July 2002 through June 2004.

Metadata

  • Sensor

    Terra/CERES

  • Animation ID

    3093

  • Start Timecode

    00:00:00:00

  • End Timecode

    00:00:00:00

  • Animator

    Horace Mitchell, Eric Sokolowsky

  • Studio

    SVS

  • Visualization Date

    2005/02/01

  • Scientist

    Bruce Wielicki (NASA/LaRC)

  • Datasets

    Net Radiant Flux

  • Keywords

    GCMD--EARTH SCIENCE--Atmosphere--Atmospheric Radiation--Net Radiation, GCMD--EARTH SCIENCE--Atmosphere--Atmospheric Radiation--Radiative Flux

  • Georeference Data

    [-180,-90,180,90]

  • Data Date

    2002/07/01-2004/06/30

  • Story URL

    http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/ceres/ASDceres.html

  • Animation Type

    Regular