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Mid-summer snow-free albedo across the Arctic tundra was mostly stable or increased over the past two decades
- Source :
- Plekhanova, Elena; Kim, Jin-Soo; Oehri, Jacqueline; Erb, Angela; Schaaf, Crystal; Schaepman-Strub, Gabriela (2022). Mid-summer snow-free albedo across the Arctic tundra was mostly stable or increased over the past two decades. Environmental Research Letters, 17(12):124026.
- Publication Year :
- 2022
-
Abstract
- Arctic vegetation changes, such as increasing shrub-cover, are expected to accelerate climate warming through increased absorption of incoming radiation and corresponding decrease in summer shortwave albedo. Here we analyze mid-summer shortwave land-surface albedo and its change across the pan-Arctic region based on MODIS satellite observations over the past two decades (2000-2021). In contrast to expectations, we show that terrestrial mid-summer shortwave albedo has not significantly changed in 82% of the pan-Arctic region, while 14% show an increase and 4% a decrease. The total median significant change was 0.014 cumulative over the past 22 years. By analyzing the visible and near-/shortwave-infrared range separately, we demonstrate that the slight increase arises from an albedo increase in the near-/shortwave infrared domain while being partly compensated by a decrease in visible albedo. A similar response was found across different tundra vegetation types. We argue that this increase in reflectance is typical with increasing biomass as a result of increased multiple reflection in the canopy. However, CMIP6 global climate model albedo predictions showed the opposite sign and different spatial patterns of snow-free summer albedo change compared to satellite-derived results. We suggest that a more sophisticated vegetation parametrization might reduce this discrepancy, and provide albedo estimates per vegetation type.
Details
- Database :
- OAIster
- Journal :
- Plekhanova, Elena; Kim, Jin-Soo; Oehri, Jacqueline; Erb, Angela; Schaaf, Crystal; Schaepman-Strub, Gabriela (2022). Mid-summer snow-free albedo across the Arctic tundra was mostly stable or increased over the past two decades. Environmental Research Letters, 17(12):124026.
- Notes :
- application/pdf, info:doi/10.5167/uzh-223775, English
- Publication Type :
- Electronic Resource
- Accession number :
- edsoai.on1443047486
- Document Type :
- Electronic Resource