The Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA) version 2017: a database for worldwide measured surface energy fluxes

Abstract

Abstract. The Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA) is a database for the central storage of the worldwide measured energy fluxes at the Earth's surface, maintained at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). This paper documents the status of the GEBA version 2017 dataset, presents the new web interface and user access, and reviews the scientific impact that GEBA data had in various applications. GEBA has continuously been expanded and updated and contains in its 2017 version around 500 000 monthly mean entries of various surface energy balance components measured at 2500 locations. The database contains observations from 15 surface energy flux components, with the most widely measured quantity available in GEBA being the shortwave radiation incident at the Earth's surface (global radiation). Many of the historic records extend over several decades. GEBA contains monthly data from a variety of sources, namely from the World Radiation Data Centre (WRDC) in St. Petersburg, from national weather services, from different research networks (BSRN, ARM, SURFRAD), from peer-reviewed publications, project and data reports, and from personal communications. Quality checks are applied to test for gross errors in the dataset. GEBA has played a key role in various research applications, such as in the quantification of the global energy balance, in the discussion of the anomalous atmospheric shortwave absorption, and in the detection of multi-decadal variations in global radiation, known as "global dimming" and "brightening". GEBA is further extensively used for the evaluation of climate models and satellite-derived surface flux products. On a more applied level, GEBA provides the basis for engineering applications in the context of solar power generation, water management, agricultural production and tourism. GEBA is publicly accessible through the internet via http://www.geba.ethz.ch. Supplementary data are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.873078.

A Revisit of Global Dimming and Brightening Based on the Sunshine Duration

“…Observed R s data sets from GEBA (Wild et al, ) and the China Meteorological Administration were used in this study (118 sites from 1959 to 2010 over China, 44 sites from 1961 to 2009 over Europe, and 46 sites from 1952 to 1980 over the United States). SunDu and other meteorological data (including the relative humidity, air temperature, and surface pressure) employed to derive R s at approximately 2,600 meteorological stations over China (2,318 sites from 1951 to 2010), Europe (116 sites from 1901 to 2009), and the United States (137 sites from 1901 to 1987) were selected from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, the Global Summary of the Day, the European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECA&D), and the China Meteorological Administration.…”

“…Ground‐based observations of R s collected at weather stations since the 1950s, such as those from the Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA), provide key evidence for global dimming and brightening (Ohmura et al, ; Wild et al, ). However, the uncertainties in such R s data are difficult to quantify (Wild, ).…”

New Methods for Deriving Clear‐Sky Surface Longwave Downward Radiation Based on Remotely Sensed Data and Ground Measurements

“…To date, four types of approaches are usually used to obtain LWDR, that is, (1) ground-based measurements (Wild et al, 2017), (2) parameterization schemes using available meteorological data (Wang & Liang, 2009a), (3) predicted using numerical models (i.e., general circulation models [GCMs] and numerical weather forecast models; Ma et al, 2014), and (4) estimated by using remotely sensed top of atmosphere (TOA) radiances and products Wang et al, 2012). During the past decades, a number of ground-based radiation observation networks have been set up to monitor the surface energy balance, including the Surface Radiation Budget Network (SURFRAD; Augustine et al, 2000), the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN; Ohmura et al, 1998), the Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (Stokes & Schwartz, 1994), the Coordinated Energy and Water Cycle Observations Project (CEOP; https://www.eol.ucar.edu/field_projects/ceop), and the FLUXNET (Baldocchi et al, 2001).…”

Estimation of Daily Average Downward Shortwave Radiation over Antarctica

“…Solar shortwave (SW) radiation reaching the surface of the Earth is the primary energy source, which plays a significant role in surface energy balance, temperature variations, hydrological cycle, and terrestrial net primary productivity [1][2][3]. Although the annual change is small, the impact on the global climate is difficult to ignore for an 'amplification effect' [4][5][6].…”