Word: albedo
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Suomi, is fashioning metal spheres two inches in diameter that will be carried by a satellite to measure radiation from both the sun and the earth. The U.S. Army Signal Corps is preparing a special photoelectric cell to detect variations of light from the earth, thus measuring the "albedo" (reflectivity) of cloud formations that the satellite passes over...
...albedo (brightness) of the earth depends on the amount of sunlight that it reflects, and this figure cannot be determined accurately by looking up from the surface. Even rockets shot above the atmosphere get too limited a view, and the dry southwestern part of the U.S., where most rockets have been fired, is certainly not typical...
...best way to estimate the earth's overall albedo is to measure the brightness of "earthlight" on sunless parts of the moon, allowing for the earth's size and distance, and how much of its disk is in sunlight. Figured this way, the earth's albedo is about .40, which means that it reflects four-tenths of the sunlight that falls on it. It is dimmer than cloud-covered Venus (.64) but much brighter than the naked, rocky moon (.073). The brightness varies a good deal with the season, probably because of changes in the amount...