In december through february, snow covers the northern latitudes, making the land surface more reflective, and therefore increasing the albedo But, when warming causes snow and ice to melt, darker colored surfaces are exposed, albedo decreases, less solar energy is reflected out to space, and the planet warms even more. The albedo in photosynthetically active wavelengths is also high (white, tan, and yellow values) because it is winter, and plants are not very active.
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Both weather and climate are impacted by albedo
That’s because our weather is mainly affected by the quantity of sunlight either absorbed or reflected back into space
Depending on your location in the world, different surfaces will have varying albedos and heat up to different degrees. This high reflectivity helps keep polar and mountainous regions cooler, as they absorb less solar energy. Figure 1 shows the average albedo of the earth in different bands of latitude The shape of the graph reflects the fact that the oceans and arid tropical regions have low albedo but that the polar regions, and bordering latitudes, have snow cover for much of the year.
The greatest changes in albedo occur in regions undergoing desertification and deforestation Depending on the albedo of the underlying soil, reductions in vegetative land cover may give rise to albedo increases of as much as 0.2. In the tropical regions the albedo variation is influenced primarily by weather disturbances and their associated cloud distributions In the polar regions, seasonal variations in albedo are due to the distribution of major ice sheets and the decreasing mean solar elevation angle with latitude.
Because the sun on average is lower in the sky in high latitudes than in lowlatitudes,theaverageangleofincidenceofsunlightismoreobliqueinhigh latitudes
Consequently, the mean albedo of the ocean surface increases with latitude. If earth's climate is colder and there is more snow and ice on the planet, albedo increases, more sunlight is reflected out to space, and the climate gets even cooler
