Earth
ID: 30371
When sunlight reaches the Earth’s surface, some of it is absorbed and some is reflected. The relative amount, or ratio, of light that a surface reflects compared to the total incoming sunlight is called albedo. Surfaces with high albedos include sand, snow and ice, and some urban surfaces, such as concrete. Surfaces with low albedos include forests, the ocean, and some urban surfaces, such as asphalt. These maps show monthly albedo from February 2000 to the present, on a scale from 0 (no incoming sunlight being reflected) to 0.9 (nearly all incoming light being reflected). Darker blue colors indicate that the surface is not reflecting much light, while paler blues indicate higher proportions of incoming light are being reflected. Black areas indicate “no data,” either over ocean or because persistent cloudiness prevented enough views of the surface. The observations are based on atmospherically corrected, cloud-cleared reflectance observations from the MODIS sensors on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites.
Monthly Albedo
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Credits
Based on images by Reto Stöckli, NASA’s Earth Observatory Group, using data provided by the MODIS Land Science Team.
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https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30371
Missions:
Aqua
Terra
Data Used:
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.
This item is part of this series:
NASA Earth Observations
Keywords:
SVS >> HDTV
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Land Surface >> Surface Radiative Properties >> Albedo
SVS >> Hyperwall
NASA Science >> Earth
SVS >> Presentation
GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30371
Missions:
Aqua
Terra
Data Used:
Aqua/MODIS
Terra/MODIS
This item is part of this series:
NASA Earth Observations
Keywords:
SVS >> HDTV
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Land Surface >> Surface Radiative Properties >> Albedo
SVS >> Hyperwall
NASA Science >> Earth
SVS >> Presentation
GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0
