Mid-summer snow-free albedo across the Arctic tundra was mostly stable or increased over the past two decades
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...
Published in: | Environmental Research Letters |
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a1 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a1 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a1/pdf |
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crioppubl:10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a1 2024-06-02T07:54:29+00:00 Mid-summer snow-free albedo across the Arctic tundra was mostly stable or increased over the past two decades Plekhanova, Elena Kim, Jin-Soo Oehri, Jacqueline Erb, Angela Schaaf, Crystal Schaepman-Strub, Gabriela Swiss National Science Foundation University Research Priority Program on Global Change and Biodiversity of the University of Zurich 2022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a1 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a1 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a1/pdf unknown IOP Publishing http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://iopscience.iop.org/info/page/text-and-data-mining Environmental Research Letters volume 17, issue 12, page 124026 ISSN 1748-9326 journal-article 2022 crioppubl https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a1 2024-05-07T13:59:00Z 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 MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer 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 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 land surface 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. Article in Journal/Newspaper albedo Arctic Tundra IOP Publishing Arctic Environmental Research Letters 17 12 124026 |
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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 MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer 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 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 land surface 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. |
author2 |
Swiss National Science Foundation University Research Priority Program on Global Change and Biodiversity of the University of Zurich |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Plekhanova, Elena Kim, Jin-Soo Oehri, Jacqueline Erb, Angela Schaaf, Crystal Schaepman-Strub, Gabriela |
spellingShingle |
Plekhanova, Elena Kim, Jin-Soo Oehri, Jacqueline Erb, Angela Schaaf, Crystal Schaepman-Strub, Gabriela Mid-summer snow-free albedo across the Arctic tundra was mostly stable or increased over the past two decades |
author_facet |
Plekhanova, Elena Kim, Jin-Soo Oehri, Jacqueline Erb, Angela Schaaf, Crystal Schaepman-Strub, Gabriela |
author_sort |
Plekhanova, Elena |
title |
Mid-summer snow-free albedo across the Arctic tundra was mostly stable or increased over the past two decades |
title_short |
Mid-summer snow-free albedo across the Arctic tundra was mostly stable or increased over the past two decades |
title_full |
Mid-summer snow-free albedo across the Arctic tundra was mostly stable or increased over the past two decades |
title_fullStr |
Mid-summer snow-free albedo across the Arctic tundra was mostly stable or increased over the past two decades |
title_full_unstemmed |
Mid-summer snow-free albedo across the Arctic tundra was mostly stable or increased over the past two decades |
title_sort |
mid-summer snow-free albedo across the arctic tundra was mostly stable or increased over the past two decades |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a1 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a1 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a1/pdf |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
albedo Arctic Tundra |
genre_facet |
albedo Arctic Tundra |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters volume 17, issue 12, page 124026 ISSN 1748-9326 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://iopscience.iop.org/info/page/text-and-data-mining |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a1 |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
17 |
container_issue |
12 |
container_start_page |
124026 |
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1800740651298455552 |