Influence of forest coverage in the surface albedo

The surface albedo controls the energy balance between the surface and the atmosphere, being a primordial variable to identify climatic variations. The objective of this study was to evaluate the changes of the surface albedo in different Land Use and Land Cover in the Atlantic Forest biome from images TM/Landsat 5 and OLI/Landsat 8, verifying its variation in 30 years. The images used were path-row 221-080, which covered the Floresta Nacional de São Francisco de Paula on the dates of 1987 and 2017. The albedo was obtained by the method of the Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land, while the mapping of Land Use and Land Cover was performed by the Bhattacharyya algorithm, identifying four thematic classes. Finally, the albedo was crossed with the thematic classes, evidencing their variation in function of the changes in the land cover. The surface albedo ranged from 6 to 22%, but the year 1987 concentrated albedo values higher than in 2017. The native forest presented superior albedo to the Forest Plantations in both dates due to the structure of the canopy of this class. The spatial analysis of the albedo exposes the relation of this climatic variable to the cover of the terrestrial surface. Thus changes in the vegetation cover cause alterations in the albedo, influencing changes in the radiation and atmospheric fluxes.