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Surface Radiative Fluxes

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Encyclopedia of Remote Sensing

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Synonyms

Remote sensing of surface radiative fluxes; Shortwave and longwave surface radiative fluxes

Definition

Radiative fluxes. Electromagnetic radiation received from the sun (shortwave) (SW) or emitted from the atmosphere and/or the Earth surface (longwave) (LW).

Surface radiative fluxes. Electromagnetic radiation received at the surface of the Earth (ocean, land, and cryosphere) in the shortwave or longwave part of the spectrum.

Surface radiation balance. The sum of the incoming and outgoing shortwave and longwave radiative fluxes at the surface.

Remote sensing of radiative fluxes. Sensing of radiative fluxes by instruments away from the source of radiation such as satellites or aircraft.

Introduction

Components of surface radiative fluxes

Solar radiation (insolation or shortwave radiation)from the sun (0.3–4.0 μm) that reaches the Earth’s surface (about 50 % of that emitted) is a major source of energy for heating our planet. At the mean distance of the Earth from the sun (1.50...

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Acknowledgments

We thank NASA for the support of our work under grant NNX08AN40A from the Science Mission Directorate-Division of Earth Science and grant NNX13AC12G from the Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS) program. The work also benefited from the support under NOAA grant NA09NES4400006, the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS) at the University of Maryland/ESSIC.

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  1. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Rachel T. Pinker

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  1. Rachel T. Pinker
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  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    Eni G. Njoku

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Pinker, R.T. (2014). Surface Radiative Fluxes. In: Njoku, E.G. (eds) Encyclopedia of Remote Sensing. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-36699-9_199

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