Significantly, albedo is said to be the fraction of the total radiation that is reflected by any surface.
Albedo is defined as any measure of the ability of the surface or object to reflect light incident on it. Importantly, albedo is a dimensionless feature by nature, and it varies from zero (representing perfectly black body) to one (representing perfectly white body).
<h2>Further Explanation</h2>
The effect of albedo can be said to be the measure of the ability of earth to reflect the sun’s light (solar) into the space. And it reveals why different regions on earth have varying atmospheric temperature. Dark regions tend to reflect less light compared to the more light being reflected in snowy regions.
In addition, albedo expresses the ability of surfaces to reflect heat from the sun. Light colored surfaces reproduce a greater part of the sun rays back to the atmosphere, which denotes a high albedo while dark surfaces assimilate the sun ray, which denotes low albedo. Therefore, the lighter the surface, the more reflective it is, and the darker the surface, the less reflective it would be.
Based on the above explanation, dark regions or dark colored surfaces are expected to have low albedo and in correspondence, contribute to the urban heat island in great extent than light regions or light colored surface.
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KEYWORDS:
- albedo
- sun ray
- radiation
- solar
- heat
