WHILE MOST OF the feedbacks at play in the Earth's ecosystem are subject to the closed system of matter, radiative feedbacks are those that deal with the open system in which the sun's energy is transferred to the Earth and then absorbed or reflected back, to varying degrees. Because the amount of absorbed or reflected solar energy is the principal component in the planet's temperature (the other factors then determine what happens to that heat, but the solar energy provides the initial quantity), these feedbacks are key to understanding and modeling global climate. [Source: Encyclopedia of Global Warming and Climate Change; Radiative Feedbacks]
radiative feedbacks
climate feedback
concepts