For example, the albedo of the Earth is 0.39

Albedo is known as surface reflectivity of sun’s radiation. The term has its origins from a Latin word albus, meaning “white”. It is quantified as the proportion, or percentage of solar radiation of all wavelengths reflected by a body or surface to the amount incident upon it. An ideal white body has an albedo of 100% and an ideal black body, 0%. The typical amounts of solar radiation reflected from various objects are shown in Table 1. Albedo values can range between 3% for water at small zenith angles to over 95% for fresh snow. On average the Earth and its atmosphere typically reflect about 4% and 26%, respectively, of the sun’s incoming radiation back to space over the course of one year. As a result, the earth-atmosphere system has a combined albedo of about 30%, a number highly dependent on the local surface makeup, cover, and cloud distribution.

The albedo of an object is the extent to which it reflects light, defined as the ratio of reflected to incident electromagnetic radiation.

In climatology it is sometimes expressed as a percentage