ImperialCollegeLondon / ImperialCollegeLondon/virtual_ecosystem
M1.4.2 Implement effective surface albedo for partial snow cover
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- Dominant language
- Python
- Stars
- 20
- Forks
- 5
- Avg merge
- 2d 1h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 34
Description
**Summary**
Allow snow cover to modify effective surface albedo under partial snow conditions.
**Purpose**
Couple snow presence to absorbed shortwave radiation in the surface energy balance.
**Tasks**
- [ ] Compute effective surface albedo as a mixture of bare-ground/vegetation and snow albedo weighted by snow-cover fraction.
- [ ] Identify whether this applies to a single bulk surface or the ground surface beneath a canopy in a layered energy balance.
- [ ] Document where in the radiation code effective albedo is used.
- [ ] Output daily effective surface albedo.
**Acceptance criteria**
- [ ] Increasing snow cover increases effective albedo.
- [ ] Absorbed shortwave decreases as snow cover increases.
- [ ] When no snow is present, existing ground albedo behavior is unchanged.
**Suggested tests**
- [ ] Bare-surface case.
- [ ] Partial-snow-cover case.
- [ ] Full-snow-cover case.
- [ ] Canopy-layered case if relevant.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by locating the radiation code and the surface-energy-balance implementation, then trace how ground or canopy albedo currently affects absorbed shortwave radiation. Check whether the model uses a bulk surface or layered canopy representation. Add coverage for bare, partial-snow, and full-snow cases, and verify that daily effective albedo is output and the acceptance criteria hold.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- backend
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 52/100