Albedo

Percentage of reflected sun light in relation to various surface conditions of the Earth.

The albedo of an object is the extent to which it reflects light, more specifically light which comes from the Sun. It is defined as the ratio of reflected to incident electromagnetic radiation. It is a unitless measure indicative of a surface's or body's diffuse reflectivity. The word is derived from albus, a Latin word for "white".

Albedo Media

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  Albedo change in Greenland: The map shows the difference between the amount of sunlight Greenland reflected in the summer of 2011 versus the average percent it reflected between 2000 and 2006. Some areas reflecting close to 20 percent less light than a decade ago.

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  Greenhouses of Almería, Spain

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  Some effects of global warming can either enhance (positive feedbacks such as the ice-albedo feedback) or inhibit (negative feedbacks) warming. Observations and modeling studies indicate that there is a net positive feedback to Earth's current global warming.

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  The moon Titan is darker than Saturn even though they receive the same amount of sunlight. This is due to a difference in albedo (0.22 versus 0.499 in geometric albedo).

Other websites

• Albedo - Encyclopedia of Earth
• NASA MODIS Terra BRDF/albedo product site Archived 2006-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
• NASA MODIS BRDF/albedo product site Archived 2006-05-05 at the Wayback Machine
• A discussion of Lunar albedos