Observation of the Earth's radiation budget from space

The planet's radiation budget includes practically all energy exchange between the Sun, the Earth, and space, and so is a fundamental factor of climate. The terms of this budget, observable only from space, are determined from sampled direct measurements of the solar and terrestrial radiation fields. On the contrary, however, it should be remembered that energy exchange between the Earth's surface and its atmosphere involves not only radiative but also non-radiative energy fluxes. Nevertheless, only observations from space can provide satisfactory global coverage of the different energy fluxes that determine climate at the Earth's surface, by way of indirect retrievals of radiative fluxes at the surface and at different heights in the atmosphere. We describe the methods, applied to measurements made with a variety of instruments on board different artificial satellites, that have led to our present knowledge of the Earth's radiation budget (ERB) at the “top of the atmosphere”: global annual mean values of the ERB terms, its annual cycle, its geographical structure, and its variations. We know that solar irradiance, averaged over the globe and the year, varies by only 0.1% with the solar activity cycle; we also know that planetary (Bond) albedo is close to 0.3, that the global annual mean emission of thermal infrared radiation to space is close to 240 Wm^?2, and that these terms exhibit a weak but well determined annual cycle. We also know that cloud cover plays a major role in the radiation budget, both in the “shortwave” domain (global SW “cloud radiative forcing” –50 Wm^?2) and in the “longwave” domain (+20 Wm^?2), thus a net forcing of –30 Wm^?2. Successive satellite missions give consistent results for the shape, the phase, and the amplitude of the annual cycle of the planetary radiation balance. However, the different estimates of its annual mean absolute value remain uncertain, not differing significantly from zero, although generally excessively positive. We also rapidly review the methods used to determine the surface radiation budget as well as that of the atmosphere. For the planetary (TOA) radiation budget, we examine to what extent interannual variations and interdecadal trends have been or could be detected. We conclude with a review of projects under way. We also discuss priorities for future efforts, considering in particular, on the one hand (Ringer, 1997), the need to better quantify the factors that govern climate sensitivity to modifications of the atmosphere's radiative properties, on the other hand, the importance of monitoring the evolution of the present disequilibrium situation.