Evaluating the impact of agriculture on albedo using Sentinel-2 data in southern Sweden

Abstract: The climate impact of food production plays a big part in the anthropogenic climate impact. Mitigation strategies from this sector are hence of great importance. One area which mainly has been used to calculate climate impact is albedo, the overall reflectance of incoming radiation in all directions. Albedo has been measured for a long time and is vital when calculating the energy balance of an area or biome. It is mainly measured and calculated with the MODIS satellites with a 500 m resolution. This study aims to use the Sentinel-2 spectral instrument with a 10 m resolution to measure the albedo of individual crops effectively. The result shows that the method used to calculate albedo from the Sentinel-2 instrument effectively follows changes in albedo equal to MODIS, for example, changes in seasons over a year. Which means that Sentinel-2 has great potential in being used to give more detailed data with less disturbing factors such as built-up areas, water or other crops within the same pixel. This study also shows differences in albedo between crops, crops and bare soil, and between normal years and years with droughts.