T J Troy and E F Wood 2009 Environ. Res. Lett. 4 045008 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/045008
T J Troy and E F Wood
Show affiliationsPart of Climatic and Environmental Change in Northern Eurasia
Northern Eurasia is a region experiencing documented changes in temperature and large-scale streamflow, yet little attention has been focused on the large-scale energy budgets over the region. We compare station data and gridded radiation products from reanalysis and remote sensing to evaluate the radiative fluxes across northern Eurasia. On annual timescales, we find that the downward shortwave radiation products, with the exception of those of the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis, compare well with long-term station observations, but that this agreement breaks down with smaller timescales and for downward longwave and upward shortwave and longwave radiation. Of the six gridded products, the Surface Radiation Budget data set performs the best as compared to observations. Differences in radiative fluxes are on the order of 15–20 W m−2 on seasonal timescales, averaged across the region, with larger variations spatially and at smaller timescales. The resulting uncertainty in net radiation has implications for climate and hydrologic analyses that seek to understand changes in northern Eurasia climate and its hydrologic cycle.
Issue 4 (October-December 2009)
Received 27 February 2009, accepted for publication 31 July 2009
Published 15 October 2009
T J Troy and E F Wood 2009 Environ. Res. Lett. 4 045008
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