• Increased surface albedo in winter and spring (cooling) and evaporation in summer and in the tropics (warming) net - 0.01 °C (Zhao et al., 2001) to -0.25°C (Govindasamy et al., 2001a; Brovkin et al., 2006) (paraphrased from IPCC) • Increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO. 2 can perturb the climate Albedo is the percentage of solar radiation reflected by a given surface. Multiple factors and processes can change the albedo of a surface over time. Cloud droplet sizes: the water droplets inside clouds can vary in size. The monthly seasonal variations were removed from the data before analysis. Land and liquid water have relatively low albedos (10 to 40 %), while ice and snow have higher albedos, typically between 70 and 90%. When water that surrounds ice or that sits on top of ice gets warm, it can cause ice to melt. Ice is light-colored and therefore has a high albedo (about 0.7). This is the correlation of 17 years of data. The absorbed energy raises the surface temperature, evaporates water, melts and … So water vs. ice clouds behave differently in terms of both the greenhouse effect and albedo. Cloud albedo is a measure of the albedo of a cloud.Higher values indicate that a cloud reflects a larger amount of solar radiation and transmits a smaller amount of radiation. Varying albedo, due to water surface, is currently not incorporated in PV yield simulation software. Water has an interesting property in that the amount of reflection depends greatly on the state (liquid or frozen) and the angle the radiation is striking it. The product of these values indicates a difference in average albedo for the whole earth of 0.017. The result is below, showing the correlation of total precipitable water (TPW) and total albedo (surface plus cloud). For UPSC 2021, follow BYJU'S. For example, just after the sun rises the sun angle will be low and much of the radiation will be reflected by the water. Albedo is usually differentiated into two general types: normal albedo and Bond albedo. For example, as water turns to ice the albedo increases, and as soot and dirt settle on fresh ice or snow, the albedo decreases. The difference in albedo between snow-covered and bare forests is at least 0.5. If the average albedo increases from 0.31 to 0.327 then, other things being equal, the … The range of albedo on the Earth's surface can be as little as 3% (0.03) for water and as high as 95% (0.95) for fresh snow cover. Altitude and composition (ice vs. water) of clouds are usually closely related. On the other hand, water—like oceans, lakes, and rivers—is relatively darker and has a lower albedo (about 0.6). The former, also called normal reflectance, is a measure of a surface’s relative brightness when illuminated and observed vertically. So I compared that measurement of atmospheric water to the measured albedo of the CERES dataset. Liquid water has a higher albedo when the sun angle is low. Cloud albedo depends on the total mass of water, the size and shape of the droplets or particles and their distribution in space. Radiation that is not reflected is absorbed by the surface. The normal albedo of snow, for example, is nearly 1.0, whereas that of charcoal is about 0.04. Albedo of a Water Surface, Spectral Variation, Effects of Atmospheric Transmittance, Sun Angle and Wind Speed KRISTINA B. KATSAROS, LYNN A. MCMURDIE, RICHARD J. LIND, AND JOHN E. DEVAULT 1 Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle Some properties of sea surface albedo have been investigated. ‘Albedo’ is Latin, meaning whiteness. Just as paved surfaces warm up in the sun, so does water. (Methane is a greenhouse gas far more potent than CO2). The albedo ofa surface is the fraction of the incident sunlight that the surface reflects. 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