Abstract
The land surface albedo in Northeast China has been significantly changed by global climate change and anthropogenic activities over the past several decades. To determine the magnitude and causes of these albedo changes, we evaluated the land surface albedo trends and their causes in Northeast China from 1982 to 2015 using satellite-derived albedo, snow cover, and land cover/use data. The results show that the regional mean trend of the land surface albedo in Northeast China exhibited a strong increasing trend (0.0035 decade−1) in spring. Significant increasing trends in land surface albedo were identified in the Hulunbuir Grasslands, Sanjiang Plain, and western and central Songnen Plain, while significant decreasing albedo trends were identified in the Greater and Lesser Khingan Mountains, and the Liaoxi Hills. Our results indicate that the increase in the land surface albedo in Northeast China was primarily driven by the snow cover extent (SCE) and snow cover phenology. The increase in the land surface albedo in spring can be explained by the expansion of the SCE and the delay of the snow end date (SED). Moreover, the land surface albedo in winter and spring was enhanced by the land cover changes (e.g., deforestation and reclamation) due to the vegetation-masking effect on the snow cover. The results of this study can improve our understanding about the impacts of global climate change and human influences on the land surface albedo, and provide theoretical and policy bases for environmental protection and climate engineering.
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Data availability
The GLASS land surface broadband albedo data can be downloaded from http://glass.umd.edu, the land cover/use data of China can be downloaded from http://www.resdc.cn, and the NHSCE data can be downloaded from http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/docs.php?target=datareq.
Code availability
Code used in this study is available upon request.
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Funding
This work was funacially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under the grant number 2019YFA0607301, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the grant number 41971287 and 41601349, and the Natural Science Foundation of Jilin Province Education Department under the grant number JJKH20230343KJ and JJKH20231306KJ.
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Xijia Li: data curation, formal analysis, and writing original draft. Ying Qu: conceptualization, writing review and editing, and funding acquisition. Mengsi Wang: methodology and investigation. Yinghui Ding: data curation, validation, and investigation.
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Li, X., Qu, Y., Wang, M. et al. Snow and land cover induced surface albedo changes in Northeast China during recent decades. Theor Appl Climatol 152, 649–661 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04392-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04392-6