The Development and the Present Status of Energy Balance Climatology

Abstract

Energy balance climatology emerged from the 19th century thermodynamics and radiation research. Energy balance consideration offered an attractive intellectual ground to apply the conservation principle to a natural process. The climate system was often compared to the processes in a steam engine. Research into this field started with insufficient theory of radiation and turbulence, primitive instruments, and limited observational data. In the course of the last 150 years, energy balance climatology gradually gathered advanced theories, continuously improved instruments, newly acquired observation platforms, such as space, and high performance computational capability. In the present article, the processes of climate formation are examined by going back to the principle of energy conservation. Further, the development of this branch of science is presented in five stages characterized by similar stages of theoretical and technical progress. This review visits important steps in the course of these developments and examines their value in reaching the present stage of knowledge. Although the achievements of the last 150 years are impressive, the present understanding of energy balance is far from sufficient. The main problem stems from the fact that the scientific community has not fully used the outcome of laboratory experiments and precision field observations. As high-quality observations are presently being made throughout the entire world, a new and improved knowledge of energy balance will become available in the near future.

Is global dimming and brightening in Japan limited to urban areas?

“…Our educated guess about the possible urbanization impact on the SSR measurements draws on the experiences of A. Ohmura, a co-author who has been carrying out a long-term engagement in radiation measurements and has paid visits over the past several decades to a number of observatories around the world (Ohmura, 2009(Ohmura, , 2014, as well as the recent activities of K. Tanaka, the first author, who visited 7 sites out of the 14 under study (Akita, Matsumoto, Shimizu, Shionomisaki, Tateno, Yonago, and Wajima). To convey some impression of the present environments surrounding the sites, we present three photographs taken at and around each of the seven sites capturing the measurement fields and their immediate surroundings within a radius of a few hundred meters (Fig.…”

“…For centuries efforts have been put into place around the world to understand the surface energy budget of the earth (Ohmura, 2014). One of the pillars of such activities to date is the Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA) project (Ohmura and Lang, 1989), which established a database for the measurements of surface solar radiation (SSR) and other parameters around the world (http://www.geba.ethz.…”

Response to Referee #1

“…For centuries efforts have been put into place around the world to understand the surface energy budget of the earth (Ohmura, 2014). One of the pillars of such activities to date is the Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA) project (Ohmura and Lang, 1989), which established a database for the measurements of surface solar radiation (SSR) and other parameters around the world (http://www.geba.ethz. ch).…”

“…ch). A major finding from the GEBA project was the global dimming and brightening phenomenon (Ohmura and Lang, 1989;Stanhill and Cohen, 2001;Wild et al, 2005), which referred originally to the secular trend of all-sky SSR on the decadal time scale in Europe that had declined until about the 1980s and has been rising ever since (note that "global" refers to the sum of the direct and diffuse radiation rather than the geographical coverage). Secular trends under all-sky conditions have also been found elsewhere in the world, but the strength and the direction of the trend differ across regions (Wild et al, 2005;Ohmura, 2009;.…”

Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) Data Products for Climate Research

“…By providing improvements by the CERES project, this paper describes the advance in estimating radiation budget from observations after CERES instruments started measurements in 2000. It also provides complementary information to a review paper by Ohmura (2014) published in this journal. In addition, a simple model is introduced to understand the climate feedback and time taken to detect TOA irradiance changes.…”