Gridded Surface Albedo

Global digital databases of natural vegetation and land use were compiled, for use in climate studies, at 1 degree resolution from over 100 published sources. A series of 6 data sets, derived from the original compilations, was prepared and archived on tape at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) (Matthews, 1984). The first is a vegetation data set representing natural (pre-agricultural) vegetation based on the UNESCO classification system. The second derived from the land-use compilation, is a cultivation-intensity data set defining the areal extent of presently-cultivated land in the 1 degree cells. The last four data sets which comprise this database are integrated surface-albedo data sets (January, April, July, October) for snow-free conditions, incorporating natural-vegetation and cultivation-intensity data sets. Each of these data sets covers the entire surface of the earth. They include non-zero data for permanent land only, including continental ice; water, including oceans and lakes, is zero. *Note: Gridded (1 degree x 1 degree) surface albedo values are expressed as a percentage.