Abstract
A simple yet accurate parameterization of spectral and broadband ocean surface albedo has been developed. To facilitate the parameterization and its applications, the albedo is parameterized for the direct and diffuse incident radiation separately, and then each of them is further divided into two components: the contributions from surface and water, respectively. The four albedo components are independent of each other, hence, altering one will not affect the others. Such a designed parameterization scheme is flexible for any future update. Users can simply replace any of the adopted empirical formulations (e.g., the relationship between foam reflectance and wind speed) as desired without a need to change the parameterization scheme. The parameterization is validated by in situ measurements and can be easily implemented into a climate or radiative transfer model.
Highlights
Over 70% of the Earth surface is covered by ocean
Given the diffuse incident distribution pattern, the diffuse Fresnel surface albedo component can be calculated from the direct Fresnel surface albedo. This diffuse surface component depends on the refractive index and wind speed
The diffuse albedo is closely related to the incident radiance distribution at the surface, which has been assumed unchanging
Summary
Over 70% of the Earth surface is covered by ocean. Ocean surface albedo (OSA) is required for a determination of the atmospheric radiation budget and the solar heating in the upper ocean. Based on years of observation data and the coupled ocean atmosphere radiative transfer (COART) model, we developed an OSA look up table for the retrieval of atmospheric radiation budget for NASA CERES program. Using this table and the attached reading code, users can obtain the spectral OSA at any specified wavelength range, solar zenith angle, wind speed and ocean chlorophyll concentration (Chl). This table format is not convenient for some applications. We present a simplified spectral and broadband OSA parameterization
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