Annual and inter-annual variability and trends of  albedo of Icelandic glaciers

Gunnarsson, Andri; Gardarsson, Sigurdur M.; Pálsson, Finnur; Jóhannesson, Tómas; Sveinsson, Óli G. B.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-547-2021

Articles | Volume 15, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-547-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-547-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 2

Research article

|

08 Feb 2021

Research article |

| 08 Feb 2021

Annual and inter-annual variability and trends of albedo of Icelandic glaciers

Andri Gunnarsson, Sigurdur M. Gardarsson, Finnur Pálsson, Tómas Jóhannesson, and Óli G. B. Sveinsson

Data sets

andrigunn/aig2: open (Version 1) Andri Gunnarsson https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4445245

Short summary

Surface albedo quantifies the fraction of the sunlight reflected by the surface of the Earth. During the melt season in the Northern Hemisphere solar energy absorbed by snow- and ice-covered surfaces is mainly controlled by surface albedo. For Icelandic glaciers, air temperature and surface albedo are the dominating factors governing annual variability of glacier surface melt. Satellite data from the MODIS sensor are used to create a data set spanning the glacier melt season.