Dependence of the Planetary Albedo on the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere Land Snow Variations

Details Dependence of the Planetary Albedo on the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere Land Snow Variations Dependence of the Planetary Albedo on the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere Land Snow Variations

Dec 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agufm.c11a0976g&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2002, abstract #C11A-0976

Other

1640 Remote Sensing, 1863 Snow And Ice (1827), 3359 Radiative Processes, 4207 Arctic And Antarctic Oceanography, 4215 Climate And Interannual Variability (3309)

Scientific paper

Five years (Nov 1984 - Feb 1990) of monthly satellite data has been used to study the effect of the Northern Hemisphere land snow, and Arctic and Antarctic sea ice concentration variations on the top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) albedo. The relationships were studied for seasonal and interannual variations on both regional and local scales. Our results show that Arctic and Antarctic sea ice concentration variations do not play a significant role in the planetary albedo variations on the regional scale, but can effect albedo locally. Other factors such as clouds might interfere with the sea ice-albedo connection. At the same time, snow-albedo relationship is found to be strong on both regional and local scales for seasonal and interannual variations. The correlation coefficient between the area covered by sea ice and the average albedo over the region between 40° and 85° N is 0.35. In contrast, the correlation between the area covered by snow and average albedo over the same region is very strong (r = 0.86). The seasonal variations of albedo averaged over the entire land-sea region from 40° to 85° N is between 0.39 in July-August and 0.53 in January-February. Meanwhile, the area covered by snow changes from 2% to 85% of the total land area for the same months. In the Antarctic region, the area covered by sea ice between 50° and 90° S poorly correlates with the average albedo over the same region (r = 0.24). Analysis of local relationship between the sea ice/snow concentrations and TOA albedo for the 2.5° x 2.5° grid values shows improved correlation between the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice and albedo (r = 0.82 and 0.86 respectively). The sensitivity of the TOA albedo to seasonal as well as interannual variations of the sea ice/snow concentration is found to be a strong function of month and location. This work aims to improve understanding of the sea ice/snow-albedo feedback, which is thought to strongly amplify the changes of surface temperature.

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