ISLSCP II EARTH RADIATION BUDGET EXPERIMENT (ERBE) MONTHLY ALBEDO, 1986-1990

The goals of the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) are (1) to understand the radiation balance between the Sun, Earth, atmosphere, and space and (2) to establish an accurate, long-term baseline data set for detection of climate changes. Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) data are fundamental to the development of realistic climate models and to the understanding of natural and anthropogenic perturbations of the climate system. As part of ERBE, measurements of broadband shortwave radiation reflected from the Earth-atmosphere system were obtained, from which top of atmosphere albedo values were calculated. In addition, values from scenes determined to be free of clouds were analyzed separately and clear-sky albedos were derived.

For this study, only the clear-sky albedos are included. The ERBE data sets for the International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Initiative II contain global, top of atmosphere, clear sky albedo data from January 1986 to February 1990. The original ERBE albedo data at 2.5 degree spatial resolution were re-gridded to a 1 degree spatial resolution by the ISLSCP II staff. Both the original data at 2.5 degree resolution and the 1 degree data set are provided.