A monthly shortwave radiative forcing kernel for surface albedo change using CERES satellite data

We present a radiative kernel for surface albedo change founded on a novel, simplified parameterization of shortwave radiative transfer driven with inputs from the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) Energy Balance and Filled (EBAF) Edition 4.0 products based on a 16-year climatology (2001-2016). Both monthly temporally-explicit and monthly climatological mean CERES albedo change kernels (CACK) are provided with their respective uncertainty layers. Octave script files for generating monthly CACK from CERES EBAF data and demonstrating the application of CACK with user-specified temporal and spatial extents are also included.