Field Measurements of the Total and Spectral Albedo of Snow and Ice

• Main Authors: In Dronning Maud L, Kai Rasmus
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2002
• Subjects: Key words; albedo; spectral albedo; snow; blue-ice; Antarctica; Aboa; Antarctic; Austral; Dronning Maud Land; SANAE; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.541.4874; http://www.geophysica.fi/pdf/geophysica_2006_42_1-2_017_rasmus.pdf

Variabilities in the spectral and total (between 300-3000 nm) albedo of snow were studied in the Dronning Maud Land region of Antarctica during the austral summers of 1999/2000 and 2000/2001. The measurement area consisted of a traverse going inland from the coast via the Finnish Antarctic research station Aboa, and the vicinity of the South African Antarctic station SANAE 4. The results show that midday mean total albedos for snow were between 0.83, for clear skies, and 0.86, for overcast skies, at Aboa and between 0.81 and 0.83 for SANAE 4. The variations in the spectral albedos could be explained by differences in cloud cover. The mean spectral albedos at Aboa and SANAE 4 were very close to each other. The near infrared (700-3000 nm) albedo related well to the total albedo and the ultraviolet (300-400 nm) albedo related well to the visible (400-700 nm) albedo. Other narrowband albedos did not correlate well with each other.