Albedo in an albedo range of 0.1 to 0.4. The average albedo of Earth is about 0.3. This is far higher than for the ocean primarily because of the contribution of clouds. Earth's surface albedo is regularly estimated via Earth observation satellite sensors such as NASA's MODIS instruments on board the Terra and Aqua satellites, and the CERES instrument on the Suomi NPP and JPSS. As the amount of reflected radiation is only measured for a single direction by satellite, not all directions, a mathematical model is used to translate a sample set of satellite reflectance measurements into estimates of directional-hemispherical
Single-scattering albedo Single-scattering albedo Single-scattering albedo is the ratio of scattering efficiency to total extinction efficiency (which is also termed "attenuance", a sum of scattering and absorption). Most often it is defined for small-particle scattering of electromagnetic waves. Single-scattering albedo is unitless, and a value of unity implies that all particle extinction is due to scattering; conversely, a single-scattering albedo of zero implies that all extinction is due to absorption. For spherical particles one can calculate single-scattering albedo from Mie theory and knowledge of bulk properties of material such as refractive index. For non-spherical particles one could use discrete dipole approximation or