Western Hemisphere + web view | + hi-res image Eastern Hemisphere + web view | + hi-res image
A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. + go to feature
The doors are open on NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite and the newest version of the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument is scanning Earth for the first time, helping to assure continued availability of measurements of the energy leaving the Earth-atmosphere system.
The CERES results help scientists to determine the Earth’s energy balance, providing a long-term record of this crucial environmental parameter that will be consistent with those of its predecessors.
*** Click either image to enlarge it ***
CERES arrived in space Oct. 28, 2011, carried by NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite, the recently renamed Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, or Suomi NPP. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA and the Department of Defense.
Instrument cover-opening activities began on the instrument at 10:12 a.m. Eastern time Jan. 26, an operation that took about three hours. The “first light” process represented the transition from engineering checkout to science observations. The next morning CERES began taking Earth-viewing data, and on Jan. 29 scientists produced an image from the scans.
“It’s extremely gratifying to see the CERES FM-5 instruments on Suomi NPP begin taking measurements. We’re continuing the legacy of the most accurate Earth radiation budget observations ever made,” said CERES project scientist Kory Priestley, of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
“It has taken an incredible team of engineers, scientists, data management and programmatic experts to get CERES to this point,” he said.
NASA instruments have provided the scientific community unprecedented observations of the Earth’s climate and energy balance for nearly 30 years. The first CERES instrument was launched in 1997. Before that, the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) did the job beginning in 1984.
Langley Research Center has led both the ERBE and CERES experiments and provided stewardship of these critical climate observations.
For 27 years without a break, the instruments collectively have returned a vast quantity of precise data about the solar energy reflected and absorbed by Earth, the heat the planet emits, and the role of clouds in that process.
“CERES monitors minute changes in the Earth’s energy budget, the difference between incoming and outgoing energy,” said CERES principal investigator Norman Loeb, of Langley Research Center.
“Any imbalance in Earth’s energy budget due to increasing concentrations of heat trapping gases warms the ocean, raises sea level, and causes increases in atmospheric temperature,” Loeb said. “Amassing a long record of data is important in order to understand how Earth’s climate is changing in response to human activities as well as natural processes.”
How It Works
In addition to observing changes in Earth’s radiation budget, scientists are also monitoring changes in clouds and aerosols, which strongly influence Earth’s radiation budget.
“Clouds both reflect sunlight and block energy from radiating to space,” Loeb said. “Which of these two effects dominates depends upon the properties of clouds, such as their amount, thickness and height.”
“As the Earth’s environment evolves, cloud properties may change in ways that could amplify or offset climate change driven by other processes. Understanding the influence of clouds on the energy budget is therefore a critical climate problem.”
The four other CERES instruments are in orbit on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites.
Overall Mission
The five-instrument suite on Suomi NPP collects and distributes remotely sensed land, ocean, and atmospheric data to the meteorological and global Earth system science research communities. The mission will provide atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, humidity sounding, land and ocean biological productivity, cloud and aerosol properties, total/profile ozone measurements, and monitor changes in the Earth’s radiation budget.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the Suomi mission for the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) program provides the satellite ground system and NOAA provides operational support. Suomi NPP commissioning activities are expected to be completed by March.
NASA Langley manages the CERES experiment with additional contracted support from Science Systems and Applications, Inc. The TRW Space & Electronics Group in Redondo Beach, Calif., now owned by Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, built all of the CERES instruments.
MORE INFORMATION
› Q&A With CERES Principal Investigator
Michael Finneran
NASA Langley Research Center
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This is a good reminder that no matter how much we focus on wavelengths of light that are blocked by GHGs, there are still large windows where heat from the ground can radiate into space when high clouds don’t get in the way.
Great images. Makes you wonder if Hansen really can find his 0.58 Watts from the long wave image?
Wonderful to see they are back on the air, and ready to prove that clouds cause global warming.
No matter how “The Team” tries to skin this cat, the incontrovertible fact is that ANY and ALL clouds, whether thick or thin, high or low STOP SUNLIGHT (AKA SOLAR ENERGY) from reaching the deep ocean storage sites, which are those vast bluey areas. Less collected and stored solar energy leads to a cooler earth; same as a reduction in TSI does. Yes that cloud captures solar energy does heat THE ATMOSPHERE but the subsequent isotropic emission from the atmosphere, still goes half to space, and half earthwards; result is STILL a NET LOSS of solar energy.
The redistribution of the surface emitted LWIR is just a red herring.
More clouds, less captured solar energy, earth cools, clouds precipitate moisture, and dissipate, more solar energy reaches the surface, surface warms up, more water evaporates, more water forms more clouds, more clouds blocks more solar energy, surface cools down.
A perfect negative feedback loop that REGULATES THE SOLAR ENERGY CAPTURED BY PLANET EARTH.
And I might add that since in general the bulk of the atmosphere will be colder than the surface, so there can’t be a net “heat flow from atmosphere to surface. There CAN be LWIR emission to the surface; but the bulk of that is stopped in the oceanic surface film and simply evaporates more water; it doesn’t get transported to the deep ocean storage depths (700 metres or so).
But I’m happy, they have their tools back on the air; just wish they wouldn’t start off by assuming the indefensible.
And without the Raleigh scattering which is also a blue light loss of solar energy from the surface, that “blue marble” would just be a black marble, like it is made of obsidian.
We have data for earth’s lw emmisions for the last 25 years?
Where are the analyses in the IPCC?
Isn’t there a satellite that was built but never launched which was supposed to be stationed at a Lagrange point where it could constantly monitor the Earth’s albedo?
The photos are amazing.
I’d be very interested in seeing the simultaneous examination of just one area with a variety of cloud covers – from both the ground-looking-up and CERES looking down.
A miniscule number of experiments would seem like it would really lock down a raft of arguments.
Load the Western Hemisphere, zoom in and look at the Gulf of Mexico. See the mouth of the Mississippi and the curious way the clouds avoid the area where the waters of that great and polluted river spill into the sea?
Why do you think that is? It almost looks as if something about the water is dissolving the clouds.
JF
The first picture is classic Naked Earth. It’s nearly cloud-free. It looks hot, barren, and parched. Coincidence, Treberth’s missing heat, or cherry picking? We report, you decide. But don’t forget – composite images – all make believe stuff. Like models. There is no intelligence in these photos – use your own.
One of the things to keep in mind regarding clouds reflecting incoming energy and increasing the apparent sky temperature for radiation from the surface is that the clouds move. And they move largely in response to the diurnal surface temperature fluctuation.
It’s a very difficult/impossible to “prove” that the nett effect is a moderation of extremes at the particular location. For the simple case of arid surface heating, the upwelling of warm air displaces clouds which notionally increases the capacity of the surface underneath to radiate heat when the sun is low above the horizon or when it’s night. That case is however too simple. It ignores horizontal movement of air either as prevailing wind (initiated by a perturbation elsewhere) or caused by the surface heating the air. Air doesn’t just expand vertically when heated. 😉 The upwelling itself results in a loss of surface heat which reduces (slightly) the rate at which heat is lost by radiation to space.
The CERES team have done a good job in getting all the image together in a relatively-short time. It’s not exactly a snapshot. In 3 hours, the sun has moved across 45 degrees of longitude. Surface that had been cooling when the “snapshot” started is already subjected to a nett warming (sans clouds/aerosols/particlates) within 3 hours. The composite image represents a snapshot of individual areas at some time during the 3 hours, not an “average” of any sort.
Just some caveats, not a criticism of CERES. I do think it odd that there’s a big “hole” in the picture of the Arctic itself, given the polar orbit of Suomi NPP.
BTW: Some of Trenberth’s missing heat may be in those warm currents entering the Arctic regions from the Atlantic and Pacific.
P.S. I got stuck decyphering “The CERES results help scientists to determine the Earth’s energy balance, providing a long-term record of this crucial environmental parameter that will be consistent with those of its predecessors.”
George E. Smith; says:
February 3, 2012 at 10:20 pm
George, you make good points about the clouds blocking incident solar radiation. In fact carbon dioxide and methane etc do likewise, thus having a cooling effect. (I will no longer call these GHG.)
But any radiation from either water vapour or carbon dioxide etc (which are at significantly colder temperatures than the surface) will have a lower peak frequency than the peak frequency being emitted by the warmer surface. (Wien’s Displacement Law says peak frequency is proportional to absolute temperature.)
If the temperatures are very close (which usually only happens within a few metres of the surface, then there can be some overlap of the two spectral distributions and thus a small amount of conversion of thermal energy. But if there is no significant overlap (generally when temperature differences exceed 20 to 30 degrees it seems) then there is no significant conversion to thermal energy. WIthout additional thermal energy there can be neither a slowing of the cooling of the surface, nor an increase in the rate of warming thereof.
It does seem that at least in principle a satellite or ensemble of satellites could measure the incoming and outgoing radiant energy of the whole earth, and directly determine the energy budget of the planet. The warming or cooling of the earth thereby might be directly calculated independent of climate models. The chief problem of such measurements is the familiar one of determining a small difference between two large numbers. But the precision and accuracy achievable by modern instruments might be enough to tell cooling from warming.
Anyone know why this isn’t being attempted? Is the incremental net (purported) absorbed energy simply too small?
“”””” FergalR says:
February 3, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Isn’t there a satellite that was built but never launched which was supposed to be stationed at a Lagrange point where it could constantly monitor the Earth’s albedo? “””””
Seems an impossible geometry problem to me. There is no point in space where you can constantly look at the ENTIRE SURFACE of the earth; and clouds as some people may have noticed, do move around and come and go.
I wonder why nobody ever seemed to have thought to put a full earth field of view camera on every single one of the GPS satellites, and have them point to the earth at all times and record continuously.
The very first Blue Marble image, the one with America and the most viewed in recent years, is a fake.
http://omnologos.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/nasas-blue-marble-2012-is-a-fake/
Looks like somebody at NASA then decided they couldn’t fool everybody, so the Africa Blue Marble was released, a composite like the previous one but at least looking the way it should.
I’m with George E Smith.Well said George
Here is my entry point: Quote: ” Increasing temperature, decreasing water vapor, and decreasing clouds will all tend to increase the ability of Earth to shed heat out to space.”
Bull.
Look at the third photo. Lots more infrared energy being emitted from the winter (northern) hemisphere than the summer (southern) hemisphere. And the energy comes from cloud free zones because they correspond to high pressure cells of descending and warming air (compressing like a bike pump). These cells form preferentially in the winter hemisphere. See the monthly evolution of surface pressure at http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/jra/atlas/eng/indexe_surface11.htm
The energy is emitted from these high pressure cells, not because of the absence of ‘energy trapping cloud’ but because the energy is generated by compression and is available to be emitted.
Conversely, at the equator heat is lost by decompression as the air rises driven by the release of latent heat. So, very little radiation in the equatorial zone, not because clouds are trapping heat but because there is very little radiation to trap.
Simpletons.
Cloud cools. Currently the atmosphere is becoming more humid and gaining more cloud after several decades of deficiency. See: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries.pl?ntype=1&var=Precipitable+Water&level=2000&lat1=-90&lat2=90&lon1=0&lon2=360&iseas=0&mon1=0&mon2=11&iarea=0&typeout=2&Submit=Create+Timeseries
Apropo purely of astronomical instruments that are astonishingly beautiful and fun, WUWT folks might want to look for a time-lapse YouTube video titled “VLT (Very Large Telescope) HD Timelapse Footage“, by the Chilean astronomer/photographer/artist Niko Bustos.
Bustos’ time-lapse videos are hugely popular among physics-and-astronomy graduate students … we are lucky to be alive in a era of such incredible scientific instruments.
No tricks, no politics, just pure beauty. And yes, those are real lasers. Have fun! 🙂
Any imbalance in Earth’s energy budget due to increasing concentrations of heat trapping gases warms the ocean, raises sea level, and causes increases in atmospheric temperature,” Loeb said. “Amassing a long record of data is important in order to understand how Earth’s climate is changing in response to human activities as well as natural processes.”
As soon as I read this I knew this NASA project is designed to prove Hansens Theory. Loeb has simply assumed that an increase in GHGs will have a positive effect and he discounts the ability of the earth to self regulate. Do we now have to assume that any data from this satellite which does not support the AGW will be lost or adjusted until it does?
If we are suspicious it is because past experience says we must be. Pity.
So called greenhouse gasses cannot block radiation but adsorb it and simultaneously emit it at a lower frequency due to the energy reaction. This fools people into thinking that the theory of GHG’s is correct since the emitted energy is outside the expected ‘adsorbed’ range. The claims that the missing LIR proves this theory are wrong.
Even Phil Plait had to correct himself on this…the America picture is NOT the Western Hemisphere, rather a part of it rather brutally distorted so as to look like the whole hemisphere. It’s more fake even than a SkS graph.
I strongly recommend you change the caption or remove the fake altogether. As I said the image with Africa is correct instead.
“Any imbalance in Earth’s energy budget due to increasing concentrations of heat trapping gases warms the ocean, raises sea level, and causes increases in atmospheric temperature,” Loeb said.
And there’s the propaganda quote. The honest version would be: “Any imbalance in Earth’s energy budget for whatever reason warms or cools the ocean, raises or lowers sea level, and causes changes in atmospheric temperature.”
Gorgeous pics. Thank you.
But, as soon as people start talking about measuring ‘the Earth’s energy balance’, it reminds me of people talking about measuring the average temperature of the planet.
Absurd in concept and impossible in execution.
What balance? Balance implies stasis.
Weird pictures…North America and Africa are bigger than on earth pictures taken from some distance.
Compare with these classical “pictures” (the link comes from WUWT page) or with Google Earth for the matter of proportions:
http://www.intelliweather.com/imagesuite_specialty.htm
You can see entire Africa, and at least half Europe, North and South America at the same time.
Maybe these are pictures from low altitude with a very wide angle lens (fisheye). As a result, there seem to be way less ocean than in reality.
– Julian Flood ” See the mouth of the Mississippi and the curious way the clouds avoid the area where the waters of that great and polluted river spill into the sea”
Thanks for pointing this out – I stumbled on a UNESCO review of studies on of oil films to reducing water evaporation from reservoirs:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0007/000700/070035eo.pdf
What can be acheived depends on wind speed. However experiments in rice paddys showed increases in water temperature ~7-8 centigrade at midday on cloudless days. [Original page 37] and talking of a C18 C22 mixture it says “Since 1960 [The mixture] has been applied extensively by farmers to warm the water in rice nurseries.”
Of course, if oil films reduce the cloud cover too , then we have a virtuous(?) circle.
dp says: February 3, 2012 at 11:31 pm
Please remember that these images are from mid-winter in the northern hemisphere. It’s not green here now, but kind of gray and brown, just like it is in the middle of every winter. So, my best reasoning leads me to conclude — this is coincidence based on the activation time of the instrument. (Now if we keep seeing nothing but gray/brown images, then I will change my conclusion to cherry picking.)
Check back in 3-4 months to see if the image has “greened-up” a bit.
On the “Eastern Hemisphere” image, what are the grey, vertical striations? Cloud or an artifact of the image’s creation?
Suomi means Finnish. So why is it called “Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP.”