Variability in the Earth's radiation budget during the past decade from the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES)

The Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) provides observations of top-of-atmosphere (TOA), within-atmosphere and surface radiation with coincident cloud and aerosol properties from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument. Identical copies of the CERES and MODIS instruments are currently flying on the Terra (launched in December 1999) and Aqua (launched in May 2002) spacecrafts. In this presentation, we examine variations in reflected solar (SW), emitted thermal (LW), and net TOA radiative fluxes during the past decade of observations from CERES and use coincident MODIS cloud observations to explore relationships between TOA radiation and cloud property changes at global and regional scales. We examine the cloud and radiation response to variations in large-scale circulation associated with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and also explore cloud-radiation changes in polar regions. In order to place the past decade of CERES observations into context, we compare tropical TOA fluxes from CERES with those from the prior two decades (1980s and 1990s) of observations from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE)/Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) Nonscanner Wide Field of View (WFOV) instrument.