reflective-seasons
An empirical analysis of Earth's seasonal surface reflectivity potential
Reflective Earth is on a mission to slow global warming as fast and safely as possible by increasing Earth's reflectivity to reduce its energy imbalance. Reflectivity interventions reduce the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth system, i.e. the amount of energy entering the system. Deploying reflective materials as a stop gap could limit the amount of warming experienced by people and buy society time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and drawdown atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
The potential of reflective materials to reflect sunlight strongly depends on location. The amount of incoming solar radiation varies greatly, with more being received in the tropics and less being received at the poles. Clouds, water vapor, and aerosols (e.g. dust, smoke) scatter and absorb sunlight. These properties vary spatially as well.
This code repository contains workflows to explore the seasonality of Earth's
potential surface-reflected outgoing solar radiation (which we refer to as
outsolation). We use data from the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES)
Energy Balanced and Filled (EBAF) satellite-derived product, specifically
radiative fluxes at the surface and top of atmosphere. This allows us to
estimate surface reflectance and atmospheric transmittance and reflectance.
When averaged over several decades, these properties can be combined with
incoming solar radiation and surface albedo to model the potential
surface-reflected outgoing solar radiation. See our earlier analysis
reflective-potential for more details on the
underlying methods.
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License
Clear BSD © 2022 Reflective Earth