Synonyms
Frozen oceans; Sunlight reflection
Definition
Albedo – the fraction of sunlight reflected by a surface.
Bidirectional reflectance distribution function – the angular distribution of light reflected by a surface as a function of sun angle.
Irradiance – sunlight integrated over a hemisphere with units of watts per meter squared.
Leads – areas of open ocean in a sea ice cover.
First year ice – ice that has not yet endured an entire summer melt season.
Multiyear ice – ice that is one or more years old.
Introduction
The reflection of sunlight from sea ice is of considerable importance for the interpretation of remote sensing imagery and for the large-scale surface heat budget of the ice cover. Light reflection can be characterized by two terms: the albedo and the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF). These quantities can either be spectral or integrated over the solar spectrum (wavelengths from 280 to 2,500 nm).
The albedo is simply the fraction of the incident...
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Bibliography
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Perovich, D. (2014). Sea Ice Albedo. In: Njoku, E.G. (eds) Encyclopedia of Remote Sensing. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-36699-9_29
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-36699-9_29
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