Explorations: Maps of Quantities Relevant to Earth’s Albedo

Note: this page offers miscellaneous, possibly evolving, information intended to support the emergence of insight regarding a particular topic. It’s a resource to support my own thinking, and may or may not be useful to others. The contents of the page may change over time.

Let’s take a look at some maps of quantities that could potentially affect Earth’s albedo. I generated the following maps using CERES data from the SYN1deg Edition 4.1 Terra-Aqua dataset.

Table of Contents

Changes in Quantities

Changes in Non-Cloud Albedo Contributions

Changes in Snow/Ice Cover

Changes in Aerosol Contribution to Albedo

Note that aerosol contributions to albedo are small, so contours in the following maps are more closely spaced than the contours in the above maps of changes in non-cloud contributions to albedo. The aerosol contributions shown here are barely detectable in the maps of overall non-cloud contributions.

Changes in Column Ozone

Changes in Cloud Cover

Baseline Quantities

Baseline Snow/Ice Coverage

Baseline Column Ozone

Baseline Cloud Cover