Global Variation in the Timing of Albedo Declines with Reforestation and Forest Aging

Data and codes from a research science contribution documenting global variation in the timing of albedo declines with forest aging. The primary code, Curve_Fit_BSA_NS.m, produces curve fits with the Shape Language Modeling tool to generate monthly albedos for each ecoregion and end forest type. The input data for the curve fit comprise of median albedos for a range of stand age classes (30 classes from 1 to 150 years in 5-year increments). One curve is fit for each ecoregion (74 spread globally), month of the year (12), and end forest type (1 to 6 depending on ecoregion), and for each snow-covered and sunlight illumination condition (4 conditions). The median albedo versus stand age data structures include 5,473 files and 169 MB of data and may be provided upon request but have not been archived here given their extensive and unwieldy nature. The resulting output from the curve-fitting is a set of monthly albedo estimates for each snow-covered and illumination condition, and for each ecoregion, end forest type, and month of the year. An example of stand-age-class medians is displayed in Figure 1 of the main manuscript. These individual results are then compiled into a Matlab data structure, such as Master_Data_BSA_NS_Albedo.mat, which is then gap-filled with the code Albedo_Gap_filling.m resulting in data structures such as Master_Data_BSA_NS_Albedo_filled.mat used in final analyses coded in albedo_decline_refor_analysis_5.m. Supporting data files that are called in the codes describe each ecoregion's end forest types, as well as monthly sunlight illumination conditions, snow-covered conditions, and albedo radiative kernel conditions.