Abstract: Land-atmosphere interaction processes, especially glacier/snow surface albedo variations, are key scientific issues that restrict the understanding of rapidly changes (e.g., surface temperature rising, sea ice and snow extent decreasing) in the Arctic. This study, on the basis of recent improvements of observation techniques and analysis methods, shows the marked progress achieved in characterizing the Arctic glacier/snow surface energy balance. However, due to lack of the observation data with high quality, the robustness of the parameterization schemes and dataset with remote sensing/numerical models should be further evaluated. Therefore, longer time series of comprehensive observations, at more numerous and densely distributed observation sites, are needed for future surface energy balance studies. In addition, multi-source satellite remote sensing monitoring systems should be developed to acquire large scale, three-dimensional, dynamic, and continuous datasets, for evaluation and validation of remote sensing products and complex parameterization schemes. Such data will also allow for better characterization of the mechanisms influencing the Arctic glacier/snow surface energy balance and of sea ice/snow/atmosphere interactions, thus representing an important contribution to polar cryosphere and climate change research.

Key words: surface energy balance, ice-atmosphere interaction, Arctic, solar radiation, turbulent fluxes