<p>During the melt season, absorbed solar energy, modulated at the surface predominantly by albedo, is the governing factor controlling surface-melt variability for glaciers in Iceland. Using MODIS satellite-derived daily surface albedo, a gap-filled temporally continuous albedo product is derived for the melt season (MJJA) for the period 2000–2019. The albedo data are thoroughly validated against available in-situ observations from 20 glacier automatic weather stations for the period 2000–2018. The results show that spatio-temporal patterns for the melt season have generally high annual and inter-annual variability for Icelandic glaciers, ranging from high fresh-snow albedo of about 85–90 % in spring, decreasing to 5–10 % in the impurity-rich bare-ice area during peak melt season. The analysis shows that the volcanic eruptions in 2010 and 2011 had significant impact on albedo and also had a residual effect in the following years. Furthermore, airborne dust, from unstable sandy surfaces close to the glaciers, is shown to enhance radiative forcing and decrease albedo. A significant positive albedo trend is observed for northern Vatnajökull while other glaciers have non-significant trends for the study period. The results indicate that the high variability in albedo for Icelandic glaciers is driven by climatology, i.e. snow metamorphosis; tephra fall-out during volcanic eruptions and their residual effects in the post-eruption years; and dust loading from widespread unstable sandy surfaces outside the glaciers. This illustrates the challenges in albedo parametrization for glacier surface-melt modelling for Icelandic glaciers as albedo development is driven by various complex phenomena, which may not be correctly captured in conventional energy-balance models.