A new approach to estimating the albedo for snow‐covered surfaces in the satellite UV method

Arola, Antti; Kaurola, Jussi; Koskinen, Lasse; Tanskanen, A.; Tikkanen, Tuomo; Taalas, P.; Herman, J. R.; Krotkov, N. A.; Fioletov, Vitali

doi:10.1029/2003jd003492

Cited by 29 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Vast regions experience seasonal snow: in the Northern Hemisphere nearly half of the land surface is seasonally covered by snow (Frei and Robinson, 1999). Although the albedo of snow depends on the snow grain size, both of which tend to increase as the snow ages Wuttke et al, 2006), at UV wavelengths the observed decrease in the snow albedo with age is dominantly caused by absorbing contaminants, such as desert dust and carbon soot Warren and Wiscombe, 1980;Chýleck et al, 1983).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Obviously, the effective surface albedo decreases gradually during the transition, and furthermore, the surface albedo of the heterogeneous region depends strongly on the solar zenith angle as well as on the viewing angle. Arola et al (2003) established a model for the effective surface albedo as a function of snow depth. The model involves a saturation level of the surface albedo, that is reached when low vegetation is completely covered by snow.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effective UV surface albedo of seasonally snow-covered lands

Tanskanen

Manninen

2007

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. At ultraviolet wavelengths the albedo of most natural surfaces is small with the striking exception of snow and ice. Therefore, snow cover is a major challenge for various applications based on radiative transfer modelling. The aim of this work was to determine the characteristic effective UV range surface albedo of various land cover types when covered by snow. First we selected 1 by 1 degree sample regions that met three criteria: the sample region contained dominantly subpixels of only one land cover type according to the 8 km global land cover classification product from the University of Maryland; the average slope of the sample region was less than 2 degrees according to the USGS's HYDRO1K slope data; the sample region had snow cover in March according to the NSIDC Northern Hemisphere weekly snow cover data. Next we generated 1 by 1 degree gridded 360 nm surface albedo data from the Nimbus-7 TOMS Lambertian equivalent reflectivity data, and used them to construct characteristic effective surface albedo distributions for each land cover type. The resulting distributions showed that each land cover type experiences a characteristic range of surface albedo values when covered by snow. The result is explained by the vegetation that extends upward beyond the snow cover and masks the bright snow covered surface.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effective UV surface albedo of seasonally snow-covered lands

Tanskanen

Manninen

2007

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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“…In SNICAR-online (Flanner et al, 2007), the underlying ground albedo influences the reflectance of a relatively thin snowpack, but density and effective grain size also determine the influence of underlying ground. In the Arola et al (2003) work on satellite respectivity versus snow depth (Fig. 1 in their paper), the respectivity of a 0.02 m (2 cm) snow depth is marginally different from a 0.1 m thick snowpack.…”

Section: Optically Thin Snowpackmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Also, during snowmelt, the effective surface UV albedo distributions (like those presented in Manninen, 2007, andRobinson andKukla, 1984) are expected to move toward smaller values. We may expect that snow height-dependent parameterizations (like in Arola et al, 2003), in turn, might function well during melt time. Winther (1993) has presented the progress of snow albedo for a Norwegian research site, where the albedo decreased as the snow went under a process of metamorphosis.…”

Section: On the Importance Of Albedo Estimatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spectral albedo of seasonal snow during intensive melt period at Sodankylä, beyond the Arctic Circle

et al. 2013

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Abstract. We have measured spectral albedo, as well as ancillary parameters, of seasonal European Arctic snow at Sodankylä, Finland (67°22' N, 26°39' E). The springtime intensive melt period was observed during the Snow Reflectance Transition Experiment (SNORTEX) in April 2009. The upwelling and downwelling spectral irradiance, measured at 290–550 nm with a double monochromator spectroradiometer, revealed albedo values of ~0.5–0.7 for the ultraviolet and visible range, both under clear sky and variable cloudiness. During the most intensive snowmelt period of four days, albedo decreased from 0.65 to 0.45 at 330 nm, and from 0.72 to 0.53 at 450 nm. In the literature, the UV and VIS albedo for clean snow are ~0.97–0.99, consistent with the extremely small absorption coefficient of ice in this spectral region. Our low albedo values were supported by two independent simultaneous broadband albedo measurements, and simulated albedo data. We explain the low albedo values to be due to (i) large snow grain sizes up to ~3 mm in diameter; (ii) meltwater surrounding the grains and increasing the effective grain size; (iii) absorption caused by impurities in the snow, with concentration of elemental carbon (black carbon) in snow of 87 ppb, and organic carbon 2894 ppb, at the time of albedo measurements. The high concentrations of carbon, detected by the thermal–optical method, were due to air masses originating from the Kola Peninsula, Russia, where mining and refining industries are located.

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“…From the point of view of the UV radiation measurements, the most important of these are related to sky condition, e.g., clouds and precipitation. The snow depth is recorded, and has been related to surface albedo (Arola et al, 2003a). Continuous radiation measurements are maintained routinely, e.g., global, direct, diffuse and reflected global radiation measurements are available.…”

Section: Ancillary Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quality assurance of the Brewer spectral UV measurements in Finland

et al. 2008

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Abstract. The quality assurance of the two Brewer spectrophotometers of the Finnish Meteorological Institute is discussed in this paper. The complete data processing chain from raw signal to high quality spectra is presented. The quality assurance includes daily maintenance, laboratory characterizations, calculation of long-term spectral responsivity, data processing and quality assessment. The cosine correction of the measurements is based on a new method, and is included in the data processing software. The results showed that the actual cosine correction factor of the two Finnish Brewers can vary between 1.08-1.13 and 1.08-1.12, respectively, depending on the sky radiance distribution and wavelength. The temperature characterization showed a linear temperature dependence between the instruments' internal temperature and the photon counts per cycle, and a temperature correction was used for correcting the measurements. The long-term spectral responsivity was calculated using the time series of several lamps using two slightly different methods. The long-term spectral responsivity was scaled to the irradiance scale of the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) for the whole of the measurement time -periods 1990-2006 and 1995-2006 for Sodankylä and Jokioinen, respectively. Both Brewers have participated in many international spectroradiometer comparisons, and have shown good stability. The differences between the Brewers and the portable reference spectroradiometer QASUME have been within 5% during

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A new approach to estimating the albedo for snow‐covered surfaces in the satellite UV method

Cited by 29 publications

References 15 publications

Effective UV surface albedo of seasonally snow-covered lands

Effective UV surface albedo of seasonally snow-covered lands

Spectral albedo of seasonal snow during intensive melt period at Sodankylä, beyond the Arctic Circle

Quality assurance of the Brewer spectral UV measurements in Finland

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