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Full catalog/Albedo_Boreal_North_America_1605
Albedo_Boreal_North_America_1605·v1.1·dataset

How much sunlight the land reflects, daily (northern North America)

ABoVE: MODIS-Derived Daily Mean Blue Sky Albedo for Northern North America, 2000-2017
atmosphere NASA ORNL_CLOUD Level 3 multiple
In plain English

What it measures. Daily maps of how much sunlight the land reflects (albedo) across northern North America, calculated for real-world lighting conditions, from 2000 to 2017, with quality flags to guide interpretation.

How it's made. Derived from MODIS satellite reflectance data by averaging hourly reflectance values weighted by how much sunlight was hitting the surface at each time.

How & where you'd use it. Helps researchers study how much solar energy the land absorbs versus reflects, which matters for climate, snow cover, and energy balance in northern regions.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › RADIATIVE FORCINGBIOSPHERE › ECOSYSTEMS › TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS › FORESTSBIOSPHERE › ECOSYSTEMS › TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS › ALPINE/TUNDRALAND SURFACE › SURFACE RADIATIVE PROPERTIES › ALBEDO

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2000-02-24 → 2017-04-22
  • Measured bySATELLITES (MODIS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-173.089, 41.6809, -52.6184, 79.0819
  • Formatsmultiple
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

This dataset contains MODIS-derived daily mean shortwave blue sky albedo for northern North America (i.e., Canada and Alaska) and a set of quality control flags for each albedo value to aid in user interpretation. The data cover the period of February 24, 2000 through April 22, 2017. The blue sky albedo data were derived from the MODIS 500-m version 6 Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function and Albedo (BRDF/Albedo) Model Parameters MCD43A1 dataset (MCD43A1.006, https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD43A1.006) (Schaaf & Wang, 2015a, please refer to the MCD43 documentation and user guides for more information). Blue sky refers to albedo calculated under real-world conditions with a combination of both diffuse and direct lighting based on atmospheric and view-geometry conditions. Daily mean albedo was calculated by averaging hourly instantaneous blue sky albedo values weighted by the solar insolation for each time interval. Potter et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14888) is the associated paper for this dataset. Note the actual extent of the dataset in Figure 1 of the User Guide. Users are encouraged to refer to the User Guide for further important information about the use of this dataset.

Get the data

albedo_boreal_north_america_1605_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="Albedo_Boreal_North_America_1605",
    version="1.1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ORNL_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.