Tibetan Plateau surface albedo responds instantly to both snow coverage and depth

Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau snow cover is characterized by rapid changes on a weekly time-scale, which can cause rapid changes in surface albedo. Using snow and surface albedo data from satellite observations, we find that changes in snow coverage on the Tibetan Plateau dominate the rapid changes in surface albedo. However, snow depth also has a distinct effect on rapid changes in surface albedo in some areas especially with unstable snow cover. We test the snow depth-dependent snow albedo parameterization scheme in the land surface model. The results show that whether or not the variation of snow albedo with snow depth is considered directly affects the rapidly changing characteristics of the simulated snow cover on the Tibetan Plateau, which further affects the simulation of surface albedo. These results highlight the rapid response of surface albedo to both snow coverage and depth over the Tibetan Plateau.