GEWEX SRB Longwave Release 4

The NASA Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) project produces longwave and shortwave radiative fluxes for the surface and top-of-atmosphere (TOA). Along with improvements in the algorithms, the primary inputs of cloud and meteorology data have been undergoing improvements in quality and spatial and temporal resolution. Many of these inputs are being developed in collaboration with other GEWEX projects to ensure consistency between GEWEX radiation and other GEWEX data products (i.e., ISCCP, SeaFlux, LandFlux, GPCP, etc.). As part of this effort, the ISCCP has recalibrated its cloud properties and increased the number of available pixels. These improvements will allow for more varied cloud fractions on the current 1-degree grid system and also allow for finer horizontal resolutions in the future. Additionally, ISCCP is processing an atmospheric temperature and humidity data set called nnHIRS. In this presentation, we present an early analysis of the surface longwave fluxes computed with these cloud properties and meteorology. The Langley Research Center Fu-Liou radiative transfer code (Rose et al. 2006) is used to compute the longwave fluxes. We explore the temporal variability of the Rel. 4 fluxes as it relates to the input data, Rel. 3.1 SRB fluxes, and CERES fluxes. We also present the surface validation of the GEWEX longwave fluxes with BSRN and PMEL observations.