Albedo of vegetated surfaces: its variability with differing irradiances

Abstract The albedo of four vegetated surfaces was investigated to derive its variability with differing distributions of the irradiance. The results are based on measured values of the spectral biconical reflectance factor, which are combined with calculated spectral irradiances for low and high atmospheric turbidity. The solar zenith angle is varied from 0° to 80°. The derived spectral albedos are then integrated with respect to wavelength in order to achieve the albedo. It is found that the variability of the albedo with respect to the atmospheric turbidity is less than 0.01 in nearly all cases. The variability of the albedo with respect to the solar elevation angle, however, is larger than 0.02 in many cases. For solar elevation angles from 20° to 60°, the variability of the albedo of the four surfaces can be represented by a mean curve which fits the individual variabilities with an accuracy of 0.015.