Instantaneous Incoming Solar Flux

Images & Animations

  • Credit

    NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Instantaneous Incoming Solar 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 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 incoming solar radiation within view of CERES during 29 orbits on June 20 and 21 of 2003. Because this is incoming solar flux, its magnitude only depends on the position of the sun, and, because the orbit is synchronized with the sun, the orbit crosses the equator in the daylight at about 1:30 PM local time on every orbit. This data is not actually measured from CERES, but is calculated to compare with the outgoing radiation that CERES does measure.

This is the legend for the Incoming Solar Flux animation, indicating the magnitudes of incident energy flux.

Metadata

  • Sensor

    SORCE/TIM

  • Animation ID

    3105

  • 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

    Incoming Solar Radiation

  • Keywords

    GCMD--EARTH SCIENCE--Atmosphere--Atmospheric Radiation--Incoming Solar Radiation, GCMD--EARTH SCIENCE--Atmosphere--Atmospheric Radiation--Solar Irradiance, GCMD--EARTH SCIENCE--Sun-earth Interactions--Solar Activity--Solar Irradiance

  • Georeference Data

    [-180,-90,180,90]

  • Data Date

    2003/06/20-2003/06/22

  • Story URL

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

  • Animation Type

    Regular