Albedo-Warming Potential

Land AWP

AWP only uses the total daily energy and not the solar intensity curve over an entire day. Peak intensity is needed to get initial melt going on sea ice to form a melt pond.

Arctic / Antarctic AWP anomaly

All anomalies are calculated against the 2007-2016 sea ice concentration average.

Red indicates lower albedo and above average warming.

Blue indicates higher albedo and below average warming.

One extra day of peak insulation on open ocean is about 20 MJ/m2.

One extra month of peak insulation on open ocean is about 600 MJ/m2.

Global surface radiation model details:

The model calculates the incoming solar radiation reaching the surface per day per square meter for all latitudes between 40N and 90N (0.2 degree steps). Considered are solar zenith angles, the atmospheric reduction (Air mass), projection effect and water albedo for every 15min interval. See the Block Diagram below for details.

NSIDC Sea Ice Concentration details:

• • Ice concentration average: 2007-2016

  • Pole hole ice concentration is calculated from a 2-pixel wide ring around the hole

  • Lake ice is ignored to reduce noise

  • Pixel Area corrected

  • Correct warming potential for each individual pixel (latitude used in calculation max. 0.44-pixels off from pixel center)

NSIDC Data

Cavalieri, D., C. Parkinson, P. Gloersen, and H. J. Zwally. 1996, updated yearly. Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS Passive Microwave Data, Version 1. [indicate subset used]. Boulder, Colorado USA: NASA DAAC at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.http://dx.doi.org/10.5067/8GQ8LZQVL0VL.