Open AccessA new approach to estimating the albedo for snow‐covered surfaces in the satellite UV method
Author(s) -
Arola A.,
Kaurola J.,
Koskinen L.,
Tanskanen A.,
Tikkanen T.,
Taalas P.,
Herman J. R.,
Krotkov N.,
Fioletov V.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.67
H-Index - 298
eISSN - 2156-2202
pISSN - 0148-0227
DOI - 10.1029/2003jd003492
Subject(s) - satellite , albedo (alchemy) , snow , environmental science , remote sensing , irradiance , terrain , meteorology , total ozone mapping spectrometer , ozone , atmospheric sciences , ozone layer , geology , geography , art , physics , cartography , quantum mechanics , performance art , engineering , art history , aerospace engineering
This paper describes a new method for estimating snow albedo for satellite retrieval of surface UV irradiance and daily UV doses over snow‐covered terrains. The method is based on combining satellite and meteorological analysis data. The satellite data exploited in this work are the measured reflectivities of the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer/Nimbus 7 instrument that coincides with the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts ERA‐15 reanalyzed meteorological data. We compared satellite‐retrieved UV daily doses to the ground‐based measurements of two Finnish and five Canadian sites. The comparison clearly showed that the new snow albedo approach improves the accuracy of the satellite‐retrieved UV doses.