New land surface albedo parameterization based on MODIS data: Preliminary result

A new parameterization of snow-free land surface albedo is developed using the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products of broadband black-sky and white-sky reflectance and vegetation information as well as the North American and Global Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) outputs of soil moisture during 2000-2003. It represents the predictable albedo dependences on solar zenith angle, surface soil moisture, fractional vegetation cover, and leaf plus stem area index, while including a statistic correction for static effects specific of local surface characteristics. All parameters are estimated by solving optimization problems of a physically-based conceptual model for the minimization of the bulk variances between simulations and observations. A preliminary result showed that, for composites of all temporal and spatial samples of a same land cover category over North America, correlation coefficients between the new parameterization with the MODIS data range from 0.6 to 0.9, while relative errors vary within 5-20%. This is a substantial improvement over the existing state-of-the-art Common Land Model (CLM) albedo scheme, which has correlation coefficients from -0.5 to 0.5 and relative errors of 20-100%.