Interannual Variations of TOA Albedo over the Arctic, Antarctic and Tibetan Plateau in 2000–2019
1
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
2
Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, MD 21250, USA
3
Universities Space Research Association, Columbia, MD 21046, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Remote Sens. 2020, 12(9), 1460; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12091460
Received: 31 March 2020 / Revised: 2 May 2020 / Accepted: 2 May 2020 / Published: 5 May 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing of Climatic and Environmental Changes over the Antarctic, Arctic, and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau)
Recent changes in Earth’s climate system have significantly affected the radiation budget and its year-to-year variations at top of the atmosphere (TOA). Observing high-latitude TOA fluxes is still challenging from space, because spatial inhomogeneity of surface/atmospheric radiative processes and spectral variability can reflect sunlight very differently. In this study we analyze the 20-year TOA flux and albedo data from CERES and MISR over the Arctic, the Antarctic, and Tibetan Plateau (TP), and found overall great consistency in the TOA albedo trend and interannual variations. The observations reveal a lagged correlation between the Arctic and subarctic albedo fluctuations. The observed year-to-year variations are further used to evaluate the reanalysis data, which exhibit substantial shortcomings in representing the polar TOA flux variability. The observed Arctic flux variations are highly correlated with cloud fraction (CF), except in the regions where CF > 90% or where the surface is covered by ice. An empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis shows that the first five EOFs can account for ~50% of the Arctic TOA variance, whereas the correlation with climate indices suggests that Sea Ice Extent (SIE), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and 55°N–65°N cloudiness are the most influential processes in driving the TOA flux variabilities.
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Keywords:
interannual variations; albedo; shortwave radiation; top of the atmosphere; 4-year oscillation; lagged correlation
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MDPI and ACS Style
Wu, D.L.; Lee, J.N.; Kim, K.-M.; Lim, Y.-K. Interannual Variations of TOA Albedo over the Arctic, Antarctic and Tibetan Plateau in 2000–2019. Remote Sens. 2020, 12, 1460. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12091460
AMA Style
Wu DL, Lee JN, Kim K-M, Lim Y-K. Interannual Variations of TOA Albedo over the Arctic, Antarctic and Tibetan Plateau in 2000–2019. Remote Sensing. 2020; 12(9):1460. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12091460
Chicago/Turabian StyleWu, Dong L.; Lee, Jae N.; Kim, Kyu-Myong; Lim, Young-Kwon. 2020. "Interannual Variations of TOA Albedo over the Arctic, Antarctic and Tibetan Plateau in 2000–2019" Remote Sens. 12, no. 9: 1460. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12091460
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