Towards a Seamless Global Long-Term Earth Radiation Budget Climate Data Record

Abstract:

Earth’s climate is determined by the exchange of radiant energy between the Sun, Earth and space. The absorbed solar radiation (ASR) fuels the climate system, providing the energy required for atmospheric and oceanic motions, and energy released to space in the form of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) nearly balances ASR, ensuring a relatively stable climate. Owing to human activities, there is currently less emitted thermal radiation than absorbed solar radiation, leading to an accumulation of energy into the Earth's system, which is driving global warming. Achieving an understanding of Earth’s energy flows requires an accurate description of how radiant energy at the top-of-atmosphere (TOA), within the atmosphere, and at the surface is distributed spatially, and how this changes with time.

A central objective of the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) project is the production of a long-term global climate data record of Earth’s radiation budget from the TOA down to the surface along with the associated atmospheric and surface properties that influence this budget. The CERES team relies on a number of data sources, including broadband radiometers that measure incoming and reflected solar radiation and OLR, high-resolution spectral imagers, meteorological, aerosol and ozone assimilation data, and snow/sea-ice maps based on microwave radiometer data. While TOA radiation budget is determined from accurate broadband radiometer measurements, the surface radiation budget is derived indirectly through radiative transfer model calculations initialized using imager-based cloud and aerosol retrievals and meteorological assimilation data. In order to accurately capture changes in Earth’s radiation budget from interannual to decadal timescales, satellite instruments used to produce these data records must be radiometrically stable and the input data stream must be free of artificial discontinuities. Otherwise, distinguishing real climate system changes from artifacts in the data record is exceedingly difficult.

This presentation will discuss the process of producing a long-term global climate data record of Earth’s radiation budget by the CERES team. We will highlight the challenges involved and show results from recent validation studies using the latest version of CERES data products.