History and Results From The Two Decade Quest to First Measure the Earth's Radiation Budget (Core Science Keynote)

The first global measurements of the Earth's emitted thermal energy and the amount of solar energy it absorbs from the Sun were made from early satellites in the 1960's to the 1980's.  They provided a much different Radiation Budget than had been thought in the pre-satellite era.  We found a warmer and darker planet than had been previously estimated.  Following the scientific method, two additional satellite missions were used to confirm the first measurements by Vonder Haar and Suomi ( 1969,1971 ).  The new scientific results and their contributions to understanding the Earth's weather and climate system are reviewed.