“The biggest danger to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”
Robert Swan
I was was today years old when I learned a new term – albedo (“al’ bēdō”) – while watching a Project Drawdown webinar about climate change. Despite engrossing myself in this topic for the past few years, the word, if not the concept, was new to me. So I thought I would spread a little knowledge about albedo: a little-known word with an outsized impact.
Little-known word
The definition is simple: albedo is how much of the sun’s energy is reflected by a surface. When sunlight hits Earth, some of the energy is reflected back, and some is absorbed. The darker the color, the higher the absorption, and vice versa. Snow, ice, and bright white clouds reflect almost all of it back, with albedo of over 80%. Dark land mass and the ocean have much lower albedo. The ocean reflects less than 10% back, absorbing most of sun’s heat. Albedo is the reason a black shirt isn’t a great fashion choice on a scorching day.
Ok, so what’s the connection to climate change?
The Arctic and Antarctic are extra sensitive to climate change because of their ice and snow cover. If there is a slight change in temperature – either warmer or cooler, it sets off a sequence of events that further warm or cool the region. In recent years the poles have been slowly warming because of the build-up of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. This is, in turn, causes a process called ice-albedo feedback to trigger more warming. Here’s how the sequence flows:
Warmer air temperature > more ice melt > more dark ocean is exposed > lower albedo > more energy absorbed into the ocean > ocean temperature rises > more ice melt > process continues in a loop
Outsized impact
Ice-albedo feedback is considered a positive feedback loop because it amplifies the effect of the system; in other words, warming creates more warming. Higher temperatures at the poles can have widespread impact by raising sea levels and altering weather patterns around the world. It’s imperative we phase out fossil fuels so the warming will stop. You can learn more about albedo from this 2 minute video by NASA.
What can we do?
There are lots of things we can do to reverse the warming caused by climate change. Whether through individual actions (like electrifying our lives and wasting less food) or advocating for large-scale change (like volunteering or voting), our behaviors make a difference. The simplest thing we can do is talk about it with the people around us. Raising the noise level creates momentum for change.
Let’s do something about climate change. Learn about it. Think about it. Talk about it.