Impact of climate and anthropogenic changes on a periurban forest surface albedo derived from MODIS satellite data

Due to anthropogenic and natural factors, forest land covers changes result is the land surfaces albedo changes. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the albedo patterns dynamics due to the impact of atmospheric pollution and climate variations on a periurban forest Cernica-Branesti placed to the North-Eastern part of Bucharest city, Romania based on satellite remote sensing MODIS Terra/Aqua (Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer) data over 2003–2012 time period. This study is based on MODIS derived biogeophysical parameters land surface BRDF/albedo products and in-situ monitoring ground data (as air temperature, aerosols distribution, relative humidity, etc.). For forest land cover changes over the same investigated period have been used also Landsat TM/ETM and IKONOS imagery. Have been analyzed also other biogeophysical effects of forest land cover change in addition to surface albedo, particularly changes in the surface moisture budget leading to shifts in the ratio of latent and sensible heat fluxes and changes in rate of land surface temperature and precipitation. Due to deforestation albedo change appears to be the most significant biogeophysical effect in temperate forests. Satellite data and climate station observations show that surface albedo changes of a forested zone placed close to a large urban area highly respond to atmospheric pollution influence and climate variations. As the physical climate system is very sensitive to surface albedo, forest ecosystems could significantly feedback to the projected climate change modeling scenarios through albedo changes.