A Climatology of Surface Radiation Budget Derived from Satellite Data

Abstract Climatological averages of surface radiation budget parameters, namely, the shortwave and longwave surface radiative fluxes, have been derived for each month of the year on a global scale. These climatological averages were derived from an 8-yr (96 month) time series of monthly average fluxes. The monthly averages were computed using fast radiation parameterizations and satellite data from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project and the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment. Results are presented as time series of hemispheric and global averages and as geographical distributions and time–latitude cross sections of climatological averages. The spatial/temporal variabilities of the results were found to be clearly related to the corresponding variabilities of meteorological and other inputs to the parameterizations. Numerous comparisons of the present results were made with available surface measurements for the purpose of validation. In most cases, the differences were found to be within...

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