Solar radiation balances significantly affect Earth's surface energy balance and climate change. Studying top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) albedo changes is of great significance for understanding Earth's energy budget and atmospheric circulation. The Loess Plateau (LP), located in the middle reaches of the Yellow River in China, is one of the most severely eroded areas in the world. In this paper, long-term remote sensing data were used to analyze the changes in the TOA albedo in the LP from 1982 to 2016. The results showed that the TOA albedo, its atmospheric contribution (AC), and surface contribution (SC) exhibited decreasing trends: -0.0012, -0.0010, and -0.0003 a-1. The spatial pattern of the TOA albedo was similar to AC, which indicates that AC dominates the change in the TOA albedo. We detected driving factors for AC and SC and found that the cloud fraction (CF) was the main driving factor of the AC, whereas the soil moisture (SM) dominated the SC. The driving factors of two typical regions with a significantly decreasing trend in the TOA albedo were also detected. The Mu Us Desert, where vegetation improved significantly, showed a decreasing trend in the TOA albedo, and we found that NDVI was the main driving factor for the change in the SC of the TOA albedo. However, the Eastern Qilian Mountains, where snow cover decreased in recent years, also showed a significant decreasing trend in the TOA albedo; the SC here was mainly driven by the changes in snow cover days (SCD). These results indicate that changes in the surface environment alter the radiation balance. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: The Loess Plateau in China is one of the most severe cases of soil erosion in the world, and ecological restoration projects have been carried out to recover the fragile ecological environment. Our study was designed to explore changes in the top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) albedo of the Loess Plateau between 1982 and 2016 using a long time series of multisource satellite products, and driving factors in the atmosphere and at the surface were analyzed. We concluded that the TOA albedo of the Loess Plateau decreased over 35 years, and its atmospheric contribution dominated the change in the TOA albedo. However, the significant ecological improvement in the Loess Plateau, especially in the central vegetation recovery region, such as the Mu Us Desert, was also strongly related to the regional changes in the surface contribution of the TOA albedo. The climate changes had a considerable impact on the eastern branch of the Qilian Mountains in the Qinghai region, where the decline in snow cover days affected the local Alpine meadow ecosystems; therefore, snow cover days also played a decisive role in the local variation of the surface contribution of the TOA albedo.

Increase of surface temperatures has long been recognized as an unequivocal response to radiative forcing and one of the most important implications for global warming. However, it remains unclear whether the variation of ground surface temperature (GST) and soil temperatures is consistent with simultaneous changes of the near-surface air and land (or skin) surface temperatures (T-a and LST). In this study, a seven-year continuous observation of GST, T-a, and surface water and heat exchange was carried out at an elevational permafrost site at Chalaping, northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Results showed a distinct retarding of warming on the ground surface and subsurface under the presence of dense vegetation and moist peat substrates. Mean annual T-a and LST increased at noteworthy rates of 0.22 and 0.32 degrees C/a, respectively, while mean annual GST increased only at a rate of 0.057 degrees C/a. No obvious trends were detected for the four radiation budgets except the soil heat flux (G), which significantly increased at a rate of 0.29 W.m(-2).a(-1), presumably inducing the melting of ground ice and resulted in much higher moisture content through the summers of 2015 and 2016 than preceding years and subsequent 2017 at the depths between 80 and 120 cm. However, no noticeable immediate variations of soil temperatures occurred owing to the large latent heat effect (thermal inertia) and the extending zero-curtain period. We suggest that a better protected eco-environment, particularly the surface vegetation, helps preserving the underlying permafrost, and thus to mitigates the potential degradation of elevational permafrost on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

The radiative impact of aerosols is one of the largest sources of uncertainty in estimating anthropogenic climate perturbations. Here we have used independent ground-based radiometer measurements made simultaneously with comprehensive measurements of aerosol microphysical and optical properties at a highly populated urban site, Bangalore (13.02 degrees N, 77.6 degrees E) in southern India during a dedicated campaign during winter of 2004 and summer and pre-monsoon season of 2005. We have also used longer term measurements carried out at this site to present general features of aerosols over this region. The aerosol radiative impact assessments were made from direct measurements of ground reaching irradiance as well as by incorporating measured aerosol properties into a radiative transfer model. Large discrepancies were observed between measured and modeled (using radiative transfer models, which employed measured aerosol properties) radiative impacts. It appears that the presence of elevated aerosol layers and (or) inappropriate description of aerosol state of mixing are (is) responsible for the discrepancies. On a monthly scale reduction of surface irradiance due to the presence of aerosols (estimated using radiative flux measurements) varies from 30 to 65 W m(-2). The lowest values in surface radiative impact were observed during June when there is large reduction in aerosol as a consequence of monsoon rainfall. Large increase in aerosol-induced surface radiative impact was observed from winter to summer. Our investigations re-iterate the inadequacy of aerosol measurements at the surface alone and importance of representing column properties (using vertical profiles) accurately in order to assess aerosol-induced climate changes accurately. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.