Govaerts, Y.

Loew, A.

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Geophysical Research AbstractsVol. 12, EGU2010-4772, 2010EGU General Assembly 2010© Author(s) 2010Evaluation of longterm stability of geostationary land surface albedo datafor climate researchAlexander Loew (1) and Yves Govaerts (2)(1) Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology, Land in the Earth System, Hamburg, Germany (alexander.loew@zmaw.de), (2)EUMETSAT, Darmstadt, GermanyLand surface albedo is a major parameter, controlling the land surface energy budget. An appropriate parameter-ization of climate models using high quality land surface albedo data sets is therefore important for an accuratesimulation if the surface radiation budget in global circulation models (GCM). The temporal and spatial dynamicsof land surface albedo and an appropriate characterization of its relationship to vegetation dynamics is herebyimportant. Temporal albedo changes may hereby range from seasonal changes to longterm decadal changeswhich are e.g. related to regional droughts. It has been shown that albedo changes can result in regional feedbackmechanisms between the land surface and atmosphere and might result in e.g. changes in regional precipitationpatterns.An exploitation of historical archives of existing satellite data might therefore be very valuable to identifycharacteristic surface albedo dynamics and its relationship to vegetation dynamics on the one hand side and morespecifically to identify hot spot regions with large albedo changes throughout the last decades.Recently, EUMETSAT released a longterm (> 20 years) land surface albedo dataset with high temporaland spatial resolution which was based on Meteosat geostationary data. The present paper provides a thoroughanalysis of the longterm stability of the data set and characteristic land surface albedo dynamics An outlook forthe applicability of the new data set for climate research will be given.

Evaluation of longterm stability of geostationary land surface albedo data for climate research

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