Surface albedo and energy

Physical mechanism from darkening to potential melt

Albedo, net radiation and potential-melt scenarios for Quisoquipina.

Implemented · numerical result not closed

Variables

The module calculates albedo, net shortwave and longwave radiation, net radiation, radiative surface temperature, potential melt energy and COSIPY forcing. Quisoquipina 2011–2024 contains the required variables, but a final consolidated energy-balance table is not yet available.

V

Energy mechanism

Darkening changes absorbed energy

The comparison is conceptual: the photographs were not taken at the same location or time. The control explores the change in absorption under 600 W m⁻² of incoming shortwave radiation.

Teaching scenario: clean-snow albedo 0.80; darkened-surface albedo 0.45. It does not attribute the change to black carbon without deposition, mineralogical and meteorological evidence.

Clean surface · α ≈ 0.80 Darkened surface · α ≈ 0.45

Represented albedo0.63

Absorbed shortwave radiation225 W m⁻²

Additional absorption vs clean snow105 W m⁻²

MeteoAndes archive · 2026 campaignsConceptual comparison, not a controlled photo pairControl: arrows ±5%, Home/End to extremes

Transparent sensitivity

An albedo reduction Δα = −0.05 under 600 W m⁻² incoming shortwave radiation increases instantaneous absorption by approximately 30 W m⁻². It cannot be extrapolated directly to daily melt without integrating solar geometry, cloudiness, thermal state and turbulent fluxes.

The result based on positive Rn must be called radiative potential melt or an energy scenario, not observed mass balance.