2003 European Heatwave as seen by the CERES instrument

The globe below shows outgoing longwave (infrared) radiation emitted by the Earth and atmosphere during the European heatwave of 2003, as determined from the CERES instrument on Aqua. The blue-to-white colors represent very cold (high-altitude) clouds, while the yellow colors represent the warmest scenes corresponding to the largest outgoing infrared energy. The CERES calculations make use of aerosol and cloud retrievals from MODIS and therefore the radiation budget calculations are being informed by CALIPSO and CloudSat observations.