Daily albedos of a bare sand surface were measured with a solarimeter (Eko MS-62) between 23 August and 30 November in 1997 at Tottori sand dune, Japan. These quickly decreased on rainy days, and recovered during dry spells (days between rainfalls).
A strong exponential relationship was found between daily albedos and the number of dry days. The daily albedos on dry days also showed a direct relationship with daily transmissivities in the range less than 0.55.
Two simple models were developed to estimate daily albedos for dry spell days on bare Tottori sand surface using routine meteorological data. Daily albedos were calculated using these two models, and compared with the measured daily albedos. For Model #1, the daily albedos were successfully predicted only using the number of dry spell days; the correlation coefficient between the estimated and measured albedo was 0.73, and the standard error was 1.2%. For Model #2, the number of dry spell days and transmissivity were considered in order to calculate the daily albedo on dry spell days; the correlation coefficient was 0.85, and the standard error was 0.9%. Estimated albedos were in good agreement with measured albedos.