Albedo in the context of "Radiative forcing"

Earth's energy budget (or Earth's energy balance) is the balance between the energy that Earth receives from the Sun and the energy the Earth loses back into outer space. Smaller energy sources, such as Earth's internal heat, are taken into consideration, but make a tiny contribution compared to solar energy. The energy budget also takes into account how energy moves through the climate system. The Sun heats the equatorial tropics more than the polar regions. Therefore, the amount of solar irradiance received by a certain region is unevenly distributed. As the energy seeks equilibrium across the planet, it drives interactions in Earth's climate system, i.e., Earth's water, ice, atmosphere, rocky crust, and all living things. The result is Earth's climate.

Earth's energy budget depends on many factors, such as atmospheric aerosols, greenhouse gases, surface albedo, clouds, and land use patterns. When the incoming and outgoing energy fluxes are in balance, Earth is in radiative equilibrium and the climate system will be relatively stable. Global warming occurs when earth receives more energy than it gives back to space, and global cooling takes place when the outgoing energy is greater.

Apollonius is a lunar impact crater located near the eastern limb of the Moon. It lies in the region of uplands to the west of Mare Undarum and northeast of the Sinus Successus on the Mare Fecunditatis. It was named after Greek mathematician Apollonius of Perga. It is southwest of the crater Firmicus, and north of Condon.

The outer rim of Apollonius is somewhat worn and is overlain by a pair of small craters (including Apollonius E) across the western wall. The nearly flat interior floor has a low albedo and has been covered by lava. It lacks a central peak or notable small craters across the bottom.

Sea ice forms as seawater freezes. Because ice is less dense than water, it floats on the ocean's surface (just like fresh water ice). Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth's surface and about 12% of the world's oceans. Much of the world's sea ice is enclosed within the polar ice packs in the Earth's polar regions: the Arctic ice pack of the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic ice pack of the Southern Ocean. Polar packs naturally undergo significant yearly cycling, reaching their greatest surface extent in winter and retreating in summer.

Within the ice, salty brine channels provide habitat for microorganisms that form the base of unique food webs. The presence or absence of sea ice also shapes navigation routes, regional weather, and global ocean circulation. Sea ice plays a key role in Earth's climate. Its white surface reflects the Sun's energy back into space, helping to keep the planet cool in a process known as the albedo effect. Sea ice also insulates the ocean below, limiting the transfer of heat, water vapor, and gases such as carbon dioxide between the sea and the atmosphere.

A volcanic winter is a reduction in global temperatures caused by droplets of sulfuric acid obscuring the Sun and raising Earth's albedo (increasing the reflection of solar radiation) after a large, sulfur-rich, particularly explosive volcanic eruption. Climate effects are primarily dependent upon the amount of injection of SO₂ and H₂S into the stratosphere where they react with OH and H₂O to form H₂SO₄ on a timescale of a week, and the resulting H₂SO₄ aerosols produce the dominant radiative effect. Volcanic stratospheric aerosols cool the surface by reflecting solar radiation and warm the stratosphere by absorbing terrestrial radiation for several years. Moreover, the cooling trend can be further extended by atmosphere–ice–ocean feedback mechanisms. These feedbacks can continue to maintain the cool climate long after the volcanic aerosols have dissipated.

The nucleus is the solid, central part of a comet, formerly termed a dirty snowball or an icy dirtball. A cometary nucleus is composed of rock, dust, and frozen gases. When heated by the Sun, the gases sublime and produce an atmosphere surrounding the nucleus known as the coma. The force exerted on the coma by the Sun's radiation pressure and solar wind cause an enormous tail to form, which points away from the Sun. A typical comet nucleus has an albedo of 0.04. This is blacker than coal, and may be caused by a covering of dust.

Results from the Rosetta and Philae spacecraft show that the nucleus of 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko has no magnetic field, which suggests that magnetism may not have played a role in the early formation of planetesimals. Further, the ALICE spectrograph on Rosetta determined that electrons (within 1 km (0.62 mi) above the comet nucleus) produced from photoionization of water molecules by solar radiation, and not photons from the Sun as thought earlier, are responsible for the degradation of water and carbon dioxide molecules released from the comet nucleus into its coma.

Orcus (minor-planet designation: 90482 Orcus) is a dwarf planet located in the Kuiper belt, with one large moon, Vanth. It has an estimated diameter of 870 to 960 km (540 to 600 mi), comparable to the Inner Solar System dwarf planet Ceres. The surface of Orcus is relatively bright with albedo reaching 23 percent, neutral in color, and rich in water ice. The ice is predominantly in crystalline form, which may be related to past cryovolcanic activity. Other compounds like methane or ammonia may also be present on its surface. Orcus was discovered by American astronomers Michael Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz on 17 February 2004.

Orcus is a plutino, a trans-Neptunian object that is locked in a 2:3 orbital resonance with the ice giant Neptune, making two revolutions around the Sun to every three of Neptune's. This is much like Pluto, except that the phase of Orcus's orbit is opposite to Pluto's: Orcus is at aphelion (most recently in 2019) around when Pluto is at perihelion (most recently in 1989) and vice versa. Orcus is the second-largest known plutino, after Pluto itself. The perihelion of Orcus's orbit is around 120° from that of Pluto, while the eccentricities and inclinations are similar. Because of these similarities and contrasts, along with its large moon Vanth that can be compared to Pluto's large moon Charon, Orcus has been dubbed the "anti-Pluto". This was a major consideration in selecting its name, as the deity Orcus was the Roman/Etruscan equivalent of the Roman/Greek Pluto.

C-type (carbonaceous /ˌkɑːrbəˈneɪʃəs/) asteroids are the most common variety, forming around 75% of known asteroids. They are volatile-rich and distinguished by a very low albedo because their composition includes a large amount of carbon, in addition to rocks and minerals. They have an average density of about 1.7 g/cm.

They lie most often at the outer edge of the asteroid belt, 3.5 au (520 million km; 330 million mi) from the Sun, where 80% of the asteroids are of this type, whereas only 40% of asteroids at 2 au (300 million km; 190 million mi) from the Sun are C-type. The proportion of C-types may actually be greater than this, since C-types are much darker (and hence less detectable) than most other asteroid types, except for D-types and others that lie mostly at the extreme outer edge of the asteroid belt.

Starlight is the light emitted by stars. It typically refers to visible electromagnetic radiation from stars other than the Sun, observable from Earth at night, although a component of starlight is observable from Earth during daytime.

Sunlight is the term used for the Sun's starlight observed during daytime. During nighttime, albedo describes solar reflections from other Solar System objects, including moonlight, planetshine, and zodiacal light.

Meltwater (or melt water) is water released by the melting of snow or ice, including glacial ice, tabular icebergs and ice shelves over oceans. Meltwater is often found during early spring when snow packs and frozen rivers melt with rising temperatures, and in the ablation zone of glaciers where the rate of snow cover is reducing. Meltwater can be produced during volcanic eruptions, in a similar way in which the more dangerous lahars form. It can also be produced by the heat generated by the flow itself.

When meltwater pools on the surface rather than flowing, it forms melt ponds. As the weather gets colder, meltwater will often re-freeze. Meltwater can also collect or melt under the ice's surface. These pools of water, known as subglacial lakes, can form due to geothermal heat and friction. Melt ponds may also form above and below Arctic sea ice, decreasing its albedo and causing the formation of thin underwater ice layers or false bottoms.