Gridded Surface Albedo
- Goddard Space Flight Center, Institute for Space Studies; ESS-DIVE
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.
- Research Organization:
- Environmental System Science Data Infrastructure for a Virtual Ecosystem
- OSTI ID:
- 1464233
- Report Number(s):
- cdiac:Surface_Albedo_Matthews
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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