We estimate global surface albedo from the areal proportion of land to sea in climatically-significant latitudinal belts at ten million-year intervals for the Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic (120 million years ago to Present) using modern plate tectonic reconstructions and a composite apparent polar path designed to minimize known biases in the determination of paleolatitude. We find that global surface albedo stayed almost constant until it shifted 30% higher to the modern value of around 0.15 with the inception of the Late Cenozoic Ice Age 34 million years ago, reflecting polar ice-albedo amplification of global cooling resulting from the reduction of greenhouse gases below a critical threshold, most probably as the culmination of enhanced CO 2 weathering consumption of continental mafic rocks in the tropical humid belt. The contribution from cloud cover toward a planetary albedo is unclear in the absence of measurable proxies but might eventually be gauged from the role cloudiness evidently plays in maintaining radiative balance with the increasing land bias between northern and southern hemispheres over the Cenozoic. • Changes in land–sea area were small in equatorial and polar climate belts from 120 Ma • Land area decreased in temperate belts and increased in subtropical arid belts • Global surface albedo was low from 120 to 40 Ma and shifted to modern value by 30 Ma • Increase in surface albedo due to polar ice cover with Late Cenozoic Ice Age at 34 Ma • Ice age reflects polar amplification of global cooling triggered by drawdown of CO 2