Trends in Surface Radiation Budgets at Climatic Time Scales

For assessment of variability and trends in the Earth Radiation Balance, information is needed at climatic time scales. Satellite observations have been instrumental for advancing the understanding of radiative balance at global scale, however, the length of available satellite records is limited due to the frequent changes in the observing systems. In this paper we report on an effort to synthesize satellite observations from independent sources to estimates shortwave and longwave surface radiative fluxes at climatic time scales and use them to learn about their variability and trends at global scale with a focus on the tropics. An attempt will be made to learn from the comparison about possible causes of observed trends. The radiative fluxes were derived in the framework of the MEaSURES and NEWS programs; they are evaluated against ground observations and compared to independent satellite and model estimates. Attention is given to updated knowledge on radiative balance as compared to what is known from shorter time records.