Bibcode
Thejll, P.; Ulla, A.; Hanslmeier, A.; Chou, D.-Y.; Goode, P.; Vazquez, M.; Belmonte, J. A.
Bibliographical reference
EGS XXVII General Assembly, Nice, 21-26 April 2002, abstract #4058
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2002
Citations
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Refereed citations
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Description
Terrestrial albedo data are important for climate model studies because
of the impor- tance albedo has on the net radiation budget of the Earth.
Direct measurements of the albedo are not common, and there is no
dataset with global coverage that offers an alternative to data from
satellite measurements. The satellite data, however, are often from
weather satellites that were not specifically designed to guarantee
long-term sen- sitivity stability in the imaging data, and thus in the
albedo data that can be derived from these. Therefore, absolute
calibration of terrestrial satellite albedo data is not possible.
The Earth reflects light onto the Moon proportional to the albedo, and
it is possible to measure from the Earth the so called 'earthshine' on
the Moon, so accurately that a cost-effective system for
mean-terrestrial albedo monitoring can be built on the basis of small
robotic telescopes. We present a system for observation and
data-handling, that could provide data for albedo studies. The system is
intrinsically stable and would be able to produce data of long-term
stability so that questions related to the drift in satellite data could
be investigated in the future.