Earthshine: A Proposal To Build An Automatic System For Observing Terrestrial Albedo.

Thejll, P.; Ulla, A.; Hanslmeier, A.; Chou, D.-Y.; Goode, P.; Vazquez, M.; Belmonte, J. A.
Referencia bibliográfica

EGS XXVII General Assembly, Nice, 21-26 April 2002, abstract #4058

Fecha de publicación:
0
2002
Número de autores
7
Número de autores del IAC
0
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
Terrestrial albedo data are important for climate model studies because of the impor- tance albedo has on the net radiation budget of the Earth. Direct measurements of the albedo are not common, and there is no dataset with global coverage that offers an alternative to data from satellite measurements. The satellite data, however, are often from weather satellites that were not specifically designed to guarantee long-term sen- sitivity stability in the imaging data, and thus in the albedo data that can be derived from these. Therefore, absolute calibration of terrestrial satellite albedo data is not possible. The Earth reflects light onto the Moon proportional to the albedo, and it is possible to measure from the Earth the so called 'earthshine' on the Moon, so accurately that a cost-effective system for mean-terrestrial albedo monitoring can be built on the basis of small robotic telescopes. We present a system for observation and data-handling, that could provide data for albedo studies. The system is intrinsically stable and would be able to produce data of long-term stability so that questions related to the drift in satellite data could be investigated in the future.