Globally integrated measurements of the Earth's visible spectral albedo

Abstract

We report spectroscopic observations of the earthshine reflected from the Moon. By applying our photometry methodology to spectroscopy, we were able to precisely determine the Earth's reflectance, and its variation as a function of wavelength through a single night as the Earth rotates. These data imply that planned regular monitoring of earthshine spectra will yield valuable, new inputs for climate models, which would be complementary to those from the more standard broadband measurements of satellite platforms. The mean spectroscopic albedo over the visible is consistent with simultaneous broadband photometric measurements. We found no evidence for an appreciable "red" or "vegetation edge" in the Earth's spectral albedo, and no evidence for changes in this spectral region (700 -740 nm) over the 40 degrees of Earth's rotation covered by our observations.