CERES top of Atmosphere Fluxes

The top of atmosphere incoming solar radiation is affected by the Sun-Earth geometry.

The colors in these shortwave images show the amount of shortwave energy (in Watts per square meter) that was reflected by the Earth system. The brighter, whiter regions show where more sunlight is reflected, while green regions show intermediate values, and blue regions are lower values.

The colors in the longwave images show the amount of outgoing longwave radiation leaving Earth's atmosphere (in Watts per square meter). Bright yellow and orange indicate greater heat emission, purple and blue indicate intermediate emissions, and white shows little or no heat emission.

Adding the three preceeding variables gives net radiation. The colors in the net radiation images show the net radiation (in Watts per square meter) that was contained in the Earth system. The maps illustrate the fundamental imbalance between net radiation surpluses (red areas), where sunlight is direct, and net radiation deficits at higher latitudes (blue and green areas), where direct sunlight is seasonal.