Tracking three-decade land surface albedo change in Greenland using satellite data

In this study, we are assessing the impacts of the climate change on snow cover and surface albedo in Greenland during the past three decades. We are investigating the influence of climate change in the Arctic region on the surface energy budget changes: What caused the surface albedo change and how much does the surface albedo change in Greenland? Large and extreme heat wave events over North America such as the 2006 North American heat wave and the continuous Northern Hemisphere summer heat wave between 2010 and 2012 have caused the snow melt in Greenland quite dramatically. We use the GLASS (Global Land Surface Satellite) albedo products (1981 to 2010) and the MODIS albedo products (2000 to 2012) to track the change. These two albedo products are validated with ground measurements from GC-Net (Greenland Climate Network) stations. We then apply some trend analysis techniques to track the surface albedo changes in both spatial and temporal domains. Significant surface albedo decrease is found during the past three decades, especially after 2000 with an annual decrease of around 0.004 in surface albedo in summer. Global climate variation and regional heat wave events are highly correlated with the surface albedo change in Greenland. The acquired knowledge will be used to further analyze the cause of shrub land expansion, gross primary production increase in the pan-Arctic region in recent decades.