ADVANCES IN POLAR SCIENCE ›› 2012, Vol. 24 ›› Issue (3): 299-306.DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1084.2012.00299

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SURFACE ALBEDO MEASUREMENTS OVER SEA ICE IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN DURING SUMMER 2010

Zhang Rui1, Ke Changqing1, Xie Hongjie2, Sun Bo3   

  1.  
    1 School of Geography and Oceanography, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093;
    2 Department of Geological Sciences, University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas 78249, USA;
    3 Polar Research Institute of China, Shanghai 200136, China
  • Received:2012-01-16 Revised:2012-03-19 Online:2012-09-30 Published:2012-09-30
  • Supported by:

    National 863 Plan Key Project Topics;National Science Foundation Projects;The Ministry of Education New Century Excellent Talent Support Programs

Abstract: Snow and sea ice in the Arctic have the highest albedo of all surface types on the Earth, and it can reflect most of the incident radiation energy back to the sky. Variations in the surface albedo of the Arctic region have a significant effect on the radiation budget of the earth-atmosphere system and global climate. The surface albedo of different kinds of sea ice in the Arctic ocean Pacific region were measured with ASD spectrometer during the 4th Chinese National Arctic Expedition in 2010. Observation period is July 27-August 23,and the geographical range of 72 ° 18'-87 ° 20'N and 152 ° 34'-178 ° 22'W .The measurement results indicated that mean total albedo for sea ice covered by dry snow is 0.82 which is the highest one,and a certain extent decrease when melting. There are a lot of melting ponds in the Arctic Ocean summer, and ponded ice was classified into 3 types by its color. Albedo of white ice is high as 0.54, blue ice is lower as 0.31, gray ice is far lower than the other two types, generally 0.20, and albedo for melting ponds is only 0.16 by calculate. Melting pond is the main reason for the variations in albedo during the Arctic summer.

Key words: the Arctic Ocean, sea ice, spectral measurements, albedo, melting ponds