How to Use albedo in a Sentence

albedo

noun
  • But when the ice melts, dark water with a low albedo is exposed.
    Tom Yulsman, Discover Magazine, 22 Feb. 2014
  • So the Earth itself seems to have a much higher albedo than the moon.
    Evan Bush, NBC news, 6 Apr. 2026
  • On a trip last year, Tedesco brought along a drone to measure albedo at the edge of the ice sheet.
    Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2024
  • His best guess is that sea ice, or rather the lack of it, played a big role, thanks to something called the albedo effect.
    Kendall Powell, Discover Magazine, 26 Feb. 2015
  • An albedo is simply the amount of light reflected by a planet back into space.
    Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 10 July 2023
  • Permafrost and loss of albedo are the only two feedbacks with cost estimates at this point.
    Stephen Leahy, National Geographic, 23 Apr. 2019
  • The scientists said a big factor of surface heat is the albedo, or the amount of light reflection.
    Ben Brasch, Washington Post, 25 June 2024
  • But could that light curve have instead been produced by a more rounded object with a nonuniform albedo?
    Scientific American, 26 Jan. 2021
  • The more reflective a surface is, the higher the surface’s albedo.
    Isabella Fertel, USA TODAY, 30 May 2023
  • Something with high albedo on the moon appears brighter, while something with low albedo appears darker, or more black.
    Evan Bush, NBC news, 6 Apr. 2026
  • On the other hand, if dry air from above the cloud mixes in (entrainment), the cloud may produce rain and have a lower albedo.
    Kate Murphy, IEEE Spectrum, 7 Sep. 2021
  • Anthropogenic warming causes snow and ice caps to melt, which can make Earth’s albedo decrease.
    Maddie Bender, Scientific American, 18 June 2021
  • Normally, bright white snow has a very high albedo, meaning much of the sunlight that hits the surface gets reflected away.
    Margaret Osborne, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Jan. 2023
  • This makes the reflectiveness, or albedo, different from the regions around it.
    Cyrus Farivar, WIRED, 5 June 2007
  • The speed is likely due to the albedo effect, where the more ice there is, the more sunlight is reflected back into space and vice versa.
    Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 15 Aug. 2024
  • Less sea ice coverage also means that less sunlight will be reflected off the surface of the ocean in a process known as the albedo effect.
    Washington Post, 27 July 2017
  • The idea is that the coating changes the amount of sunlight the asteroid reflects, its albedo, creating a thrust that redirects it.
    The Physics Arxiv Blog, Discover Magazine, 10 Dec. 2021
  • The researchers found no correlation, which means that changes in Earth’s albedo is caused by something on the Earth.
    Jamie Carter, Forbes, 6 Dec. 2021
  • The camera also maintains albedo, displacement, and normal map that are render-ready.
    Valentina Palladino, Ars Technica, 8 Jan. 2018
  • The relative reflectivity of a surface is known as its albedo.
    Betsy Mason, National Geographic, 8 Jan. 2017
  • High albedo, usually for the moon, means bright areas, and low albedo refers to dimmer locations, Gross said.
    Jackie Wattles, CNN Money, 6 Apr. 2026
  • The unknown absorbers seem to play a role in this process by affecting the planet’s albedo, or how much energy is reflected back to space.
    Erica Naone, Discover Magazine, 29 Aug. 2019
  • The scientists used the device to record the snow’s albedo, a measure of what fraction of the sunlight beaming down is reflected back up.
    Kylie Mohr, WIRED, 10 Dec. 2022
  • Less sea ice means the planet's reflectivity (what scientists call albedo) declines and our planet absorbs more heat from the sun.
    David Freeman, NBC News, 9 May 2017
  • Second is albedo, or the reflectivity of the object's surface.
    Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 28 June 2021
  • This reflectivity is known as albedo, and Earth’s overall albedo has been decreasing for decades.
    Ryan Green, Scientific American, 22 Oct. 2025
  • Other factors also influence albedo, including dirt, dust and ash from wildfires.
    Kylie Mohr, WIRED, 10 Dec. 2022
  • There will be more opportunities to contribute to albedo measurements in the future.
    The Intersection, Discover Magazine, 5 Aug. 2011
  • The albedo effect is particularly acute in the summer, when the Arctic is bathed in 24 hours of sunlight.
    Matt Simon, Wired, 7 Apr. 2021
  • In summer, owing to the albedo effect—light surfaces reflect heat, dark ones absorb it—the pale grass would stay cooler than the brown shrubs that currently blanket the tundra.
    Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker, 10 Jan. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'albedo.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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