Remote Sensing of Solar Radiation Absorbed by Land Surfaces (Second Edition)
A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Remote Sensing".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 18
Special Issue Editors
Interests: vegetation structure; BRDF; albedo; phenology dynamics and climate change; nighttime light; time series analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: albedo; incoming solar radiation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: surface radiation budget; albedo; bio-geophysical ECVs
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: albedo; surface radiation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The Earth has a complex climate system that is influenced, to a certain extent, by the amount of solar energy absorbed by the surface. The energy absorbed by the Earth’s surface is usually calculated by combining two radiative variables:
1/ Global incoming solar radiation at the surface level;
2/ Land surface albedo.
The global incoming solar radiation, composed of direct and diffuse components, essentially depends on the solar zenith angle, cloud coverage, aerosol load, gas absorption, and land surface albedo over bright surfaces. The land surface albedo shows a complex dependency on the surface's properties (e.g., vegetation phenology, soil moisture, and land types).
Solar radiation absorbed by land surfaces is of vital importance for life on Earth, energy balance, and water and carbon cycles (photosynthesis and photochemical reactions). Solar radiation drives meteorological and climatic conditions. It is also the most abundant renewable energy resource. The regular and timely monitoring of surface albedo from the local to global scales is vital in determining the radiation exchanges in the continuum of soil–vegetation–atmosphere in the context of a changing climate. Recent studies also show that land cover management has a direct impact on the combination of these two variables, which could play a role in the mitigation of climate change.
In this Special Issue, we will showcase state-of-the-art research that addresses the complementary efforts of remote sensing and the modelling of 1/ incoming solar radiation and 2/ land surface albedo.
The first volume of this Special Issue of Remote Sensing enjoyed great success, and we are excited to invite the submission of further original research and review articles for this second volume.
This Special Issue will celebrate recent developments in determining and validating these two variables. Review contributions are welcome, as well as papers demonstrating applications in weather prediction, the energy sector, climate analysis, and the mitigation of climate change. Short communications giving constructive criticisms or discussing/amending previous studies are also welcome.
Dr. Zhuosen Wang
Dr. Dominique Carrer
Dr. Christian Lanconelli
Dr. Angela Erb
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- land surface albedo
- incoming solar radiation
- aerosols, clouds, BRDF
- photovoltaic
- radiative forcing
- validation
- climate change/mitigation
- earth radiation budget
- applications of radiation products
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