Publications

Song, Y; Lv, M; Wang, MS; Li, XJ; Qu, Y (2021). Reconstruction of Historical Land Surface Albedo Changes in China From 850 to 2015 Using Land Use Harmonization Data and Albedo Look-Up Maps. EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE, 8(9), e2021EA001799.

Abstract
Land surface albedo is a critical parameter of the Earth's energy budget and has been greatly altered by climate change and human activities. To improve our understanding of historical land surface albedo changes and their climatic effects before the satellite remote sensing era, we reconstructed land surface albedo in China from 850 to 2015 using the historical land use harmonization version 2 (LUH2) data set and albedo look-up maps, and estimated the radiative forcing induced by land surface albedo changes using atmospheric radiative kernels. The reconstruction results showed that the annual-mean land surface albedo in China increased by 0.00110 during 850-2015, and the rate of increase was accelerated by the expansion of croplands during recent centuries. The most significant increases in land surface albedo were found in the Huang-Huai-Hai (HHH; +0.00646) and Northeast China (NE; +0.00501), which were primarily driven by anthropogenic land cover transformations (e.g., land reclamation, deforestation, and urbanization) and can be enhanced by the vegetation masking effect on snow cover. The radiative forcing induced by land surface albedo changes in China during 850-2015 and 1750-2015 was -0.09 +/- 0.04 and -0.06 +/- 0.02 W m(-2), respectively, which indicated that the land surface albedo changes produced a slight climate cooling effect, helping to offset the warming effect caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Plain Language Summary As an indicator for denoting the reflectance properties of land surfaces, albedo varies with land cover and geophysical properties. In the recent decades, the satellite observations have demonstrated that the land surface albedo on global and regional scales has been greatly altered by global climate change and human activities. However, because land surface albedo before the satellite era cannot be directly acquired by measurements, historical land surface albedo changes must be obtained using reconstructions and model simulations. Herein, we reconstructed the historical land surface albedo changes in China from 850 to 2015 using land use harmonization data and albedo look-up maps. We found that the land surface albedo in China increased by 0.00110 during 850-2015 due to anthropogenic land cover transformations (e.g., land reclamation, deforestation, and urbanization) and the vegetation masking effect on snow cover. The results indicated that the historical changes of land surface albedo in China produced a slight climate cooling effect, helping to offset the warming effect caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

DOI:
10.1029/2021EA001799

ISSN: