Figure 2.1

University of Washington Seattle
Sarah Doherty

This figure appears in chapter 2 of the Climate Science Special Report: The Fourth National Climate Assessment: Volume I report.

Global mean energy budget of Earth under present-day climate conditions. Numbers state magnitudes of the individual energy fluxes in watts per square meter (W/m²) averaged over Earth’s surface, adjusted within their uncertainty ranges to balance the energy budgets of the atmosphere and the surface. Numbers in parentheses attached to the energy fluxes cover the range of values in line with observational constraints. Fluxes shown include those resulting from feedbacks. Note the net imbalance of 0.6 W/m² in the global mean energy budget. The observational constraints are largely provided by satellite-based observations, which have directly measured solar and infrared fluxes at the top of the atmosphere over nearly the whole globe since 1984.49f0d3ca-16eb-4dc2-9b97-09b9600516a1 a3879371-64a6-46ef-bdcc-3cd2aa01b0d6 More advanced satellite-based measurements focusing on the role of clouds in Earth’s radiative fluxes have been available since 1998.73878ae4-f897-45a8-b430-3d2794eea3ad 54b8a1c6-1a07-4554-8d07-b9441b8efd61 Top of Atmosphere (TOA) reflected solar values given here are based on observations 2001–2010; TOA outgoing longwave is based on 2005–2010 observations. (Figure source: Hartmann et al. 2013,47a5196b-4fba-4fdb-8647-8945627725bb Figure 2-11; © IPCC, used with permission).

Free to use with credit to the original figure source.

This figure was created on October 13, 2016.

This figure was submitted on August 30, 2017.

References :

• chapter ipcc-ar5-wg1 chapter 2 : Observations: Atmosphere and Surface (47a5196b)
• The Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) (49f0d3ca)
• Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES): An Earth observing system experiment (54b8a1c6)
• Mission to planet Earth: Role of clouds and radiation in climate (73878ae4)
• Radiation budget measurements for the eighties and nineties (a3879371)

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