The Driving Factors of Global Land Surface Albedo: An Analysis with the Glass and Merra-2 Data

Land surface albedo is an important parameter in surface energy budget, which determines the reflected/absorbed fraction of shortwave solar radiation of land surfaces. As the land surface albedo is highly spatio-temporal dynamic, it is important to understanding the spatial patterns of the leading factors of land surface albedo. In this study, we analyzed the driving factors of global land surface albedo from 1982 to 2015 with the global land surface satellite (GLASS) and the modern-era retrospective analysis for research and applications version 2 (Merra-2) datasets based on the multilinear regression and partial correlation methods. The results show that the variations of land surface albedo can be largely explained by the three major factors: snow cover extent, vegetation dynamics, and surface soil moisture. The driving factors of land surface albedo vary with different area, and the spatial distribution patterns for driving factors of land surface albedo were also explored by this study.