Land surface albedo dynamics [in "State of the Climate in 2019"].

Albedo is the fraction of shortwave radiation reflected by the surface and depends on a number of surface attributes such as snow cover, vegetation cover, and soil moisture among others. The year 2019 exhibited large regional contrasts in terms of land surface albedo in the visible part of the spectrum (see Plate 2.1ac), with the NH overall darker and the SH brighter that the baseline period 2003–10. Strong negative anomalies in visible albedo (on the order of −30%) were especially noticeable in central and eastern Europe. Similarly, high negative values were observed in the Caucasus and the Middle East; in eastern Asia (western China and Mongolia, Korea, and Japan); northwestern America (Alaska, Yukon, and Northwest Territories); eastern United States; and parts of Argentina and Chile.Large positive anomalies (up to +30%) were found in North America, in the Himalayas and eastern China, in eastern Australia, southern Africa, and sporadically in southern America.

DUVEILLER BOGDAN Grégory Henry E;  GOBRON Nadine;  PINTY Bernard; 

2020-09-01

AMER METEOROLOGICAL SOC

JRC120971

0003-0007 (online),   

https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/state-of-the-climate/,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC120971,   

10.1175/BAMS-D-20-0104.1 (online),