Changes in Earth's reflectance over the past two decades

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-28-2004

Abstract

We correlate an overlapping period of earthshine measurements of Earth's reflectance (from 1999 through mid-2001) with satellite observations of global cloud properties to construct from the latter a proxy measure of Earth's global shortwave reflectance. This proxy shows a steady decrease in Earth's reflectance from 1984 to 2000, with a strong climatologically significant drop after 1995. From 2001 to 2003, only earthshine data are available, and they indicate a complete reversal of the decline. Understanding how the causes of these decadal changes are apportioned between natural variability, direct forcing, and feedbacks is fundamental to confidently assessing and predicting climate change.

Identifier

2542569672 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Science

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1094070

ISSN

00368075

First Page

1299

Last Page

1301

Issue

5675

Volume

304

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