Spatiotemporal variations of land surface albedo and associated influencing factors on the Tibetan Plateau

Guojin Pang; Deliang Chen; Xuejia Wang; Hui-Wen Lai

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150100

Spatiotemporal variations of land surface albedo and associated influencing factors on the Tibetan Plateau

Sci Total Environ. 2022 Jan 15:804:150100. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150100. Epub 2021 Sep 4.

Authors

Guojin Pang¹, Deliang Chen², Xuejia Wang³, Hui-Wen Lai⁴

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Geomatics, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China; Regional Climate Group, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg 40530, Sweden; National-Local Joint Engineering Research Center of Technologies and Applications for National Geographic State Monitoring, Lanzhou 730070, China; Gansu Provincial Engineering Laboratory for National Geographic State Monitoring, Lanzhou 730070, China.
² Regional Climate Group, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg 40530, Sweden. Electronic address: deliang@gvc.gu.se.
³ State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science/Yulong Snow Mountain Cryosphere and Sustainable Development Field Observation and Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China; Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730030, China. Electronic address: xjwang@lzb.ac.cn.
⁴ Regional Climate Group, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg 40530, Sweden.

PMID: 34517323
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150100

Abstract

Land surface albedo plays a crucial role in the land surface energy budget and climate. This paper identified the spatiotemporal variations of surface albedo on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) from 1982 to 2015, and quantified the relationships between the spatial and temporal patterns of the albedo and associated influencing factors (snow cover, vegetation, and soil moisture) on the seasonal and interannual basis using satellite products and reanalysis data. It was determined that the albedo presented a distinct spatial variability, with high values in mountainous areas and low values on the southeastern TP. Spatially, average albedo exhibited a positive correlation with snow cover and negative correlations with vegetation and soil moisture. Average albedo over the whole TP had a clear seasonal cycle with a peak in winter and a minimum value in summer, which is dictated by seasonal changes in snow and vegetation covers. Annual average albedo exhibited a weakly downward trend, which was mainly contributed by a significant decrease in summer, pointing to the important role in vegetation dynamics for temporal change of the albedo. On the regional basis, interannual variation of albedo was more responsive to snow cover over the snow- and vegetation-coexisting area than the snow-covered area, and to changes in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) over the vegetation-covered area than the snow- and vegetation-coexisting area; albedo had a weakly negative correlation with soil moisture over bare soil. Furthermore, our results indicated that snow cover was the dominant factor for albedo change on mountainous areas, and vegetation change predominated the variation of albedo on the eastern, southern, and northwestern TP. Specifically, variations in snow cover contributed more than those of vegetation to the interannual albedo variation over the Three Rivers Headwater Region. These results would be beneficial for better understanding the climate and eco-environment changes over the TP.

Keywords: NDVI; Snow cover; Soil moisture; Spatiotemporal variation; Surface albedo; Tibetan Plateau.

MeSH terms

Climate Change
Climate*
Seasons
Snow*
Tibet