The Earth’s radiation balance provides an inventory of the energy received and lost by the Earth’s climate system, soil-atmosphere-oceans. Approximately 30% of this incident radiation is scattered back into space, by the atmosphere (diffusion by molecules, clouds and aerosols) and by the earth’s surface. The remaining 70% is absorbed in the atmosphere or by the earth’s surface and converted into heat.
Find out more about AERIS projects on this subject:
ACTRIS-FR is the French component of ACTRIS-EU for the observation and exploration of aerosols, clouds and reactive gases and their interactions. ACTRIS is a distributed European research infrastructure supporting research […]
The first AMMA observation campaign was successfully carried out from mid-January to mid-February. It enabled the characterisation of the microphysical and radiative properties of aerosols and their dynamics during the […]
The AEROCLO-sA project (AErosol, RadiatiOn and CLOuds in southern Africa) investigates the role of aerosols on the regional climate of southern Africa, a unique environment where natural and anthropogenic aerosols […]
The MOSAI (Model and Observation for Surface-Atmosphere Interactions) project (ANR 2020) aims to assess and improve the interactions between the surface and the atmosphere in weather and climate numerical prediction […]
Megha-Tropiques is a space mission jointly managed by the space agencies CNES and ISRO. This mission is designed to study the convective systems of the atmosphere and more particularly the analysis of the water cycle through the transport and distribution of water vapor, the life cycle of convective systems and energy exchanges in the equatorial belt. The tropical zones are those where the most important energy exchanges occur: radiative exchanges, latent heat exchanges, transport of constituents and energy through dynamic processes. The challenge is therefore to increase knowledge of hydrological and energy processes in the tropics and their influence on the global circulation of the atmosphere, that the oceans, and climatic variations.
POLDER (POLarization and Directionality of the Earth’s Reflectances) instrument analyses the intensity and direction of light reflected by the Earth and its atmosphere, as well as its polarization, a physical characteristic describing how waves propagate. Such measurements reveal some interesting properties of clouds and aerosols, thereby telling us more about how they affect climate. Designed and developed by CNES, in close collaboration with the LOA atmospheric optics laboratory in Lille, the POLDER instrument is mainly dedicated to the study the of the clouds and aerosols properties, but it also provides valuable information on the directionality of terrestrial reflectances and on the ocean colour. It has been the first space instrument to provide global and systematic spectral, directional and polarization measurements of radiation reflected from the Earth and atmosphere.
CloudSat is a NASA satellite. It is studying clouds in detail to better characterize the role they play in regulating Earth’s climate. It is providing a global survey of the vertical structure and overlap of cloud systems and their liquid and ice-water contents.
The context Adequate tools are required to perform reliable radiative transfer modelling calculations to meet the needs of communities involved in understanding the atmospheres of the Earth and other planets. […]