Intercomparison of five top-of-atmosphere satellite albedo products over land

Abstract

Top-of-atmosphere (TOA) albedo is important for studying Earth’s energy budget and climate dynamics. As no direct validation can be conducted to determine their accuracies, comprehensive intercomparisons are of significance for robust applications. In this study, five TOA albedo products over land surfaces have been intercompared, including three global TOA albedo products from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) (TAL-AVHRR), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) (TAL-MODIS) and Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES), the regional product from the Climate Monitoring Satellite Application Facility (CM SAF), and the harmonized product called Diagnosing Earth's Energy Pathways in the Climate system (DEEP-C). Results show that there is good consistence among the five products overall, especially after the year 2000. The differences among these products in the high-latitude regions are relatively larger (~0.2). The differences among TAL-AVHRR, TAL-MODIS and CERES are mostly less than 0.05 while the differences between TAL-AVHRR and DEEP-C before 2000 can be up to 0.1.