Surface Albedo Dominates Radiation Efficiency of Alpine Grasslands Along an Elevation Profile of Qilian Mountains

Quantifying the elevation dependency of radiation partitioning in high‐altitude mountains is crucial for projecting regional energy balance while remains highly uncertain. We compared the surface radiation partitioning parameters across a meadow (3,200 m), shrub (3,400 m), and forb (3,600 m) along a southern slope of the Qilian Mountains. At a daily scale, the downward shortwave radiation ( R s ) fluctuated minimally among the grassland types probably induced by similar site orientations. The greatest downward and upward longwave radiation ( L d and L u ) happened at the lowest meadow while the largest net shortwave ( S n ) and longwave ( L n ) radiation occurred at the deciduous shrub. The net all‐wave radiation ( R n ) of the meadow and shrub was similar and exceeded that of the forb by ∼20%. The differences in R n between the sites were jointly explained by those of upward shortwave radiation ( R u ) and L u , more than by R s and L d , suggesting the importance of surface attributes. The monthly normalized effective terrestrial radiation (λ, the ratio of L n to R s ) varied insignificantly among the sites and averaged 0.25 ± 0.05, which was comparable to the global mean value (0.26). The smallest surface albedo (α, the ratio of R u to R s ) and largest radiation efficiency (η, the ratio of R n to R s ) were 0.13 ± 0.02 and 0.64 ± 0.09, respectively, both at the shrub. Grassland type dominated the spatial variations of monthly α and η. These findings highlighted the importance of grassland types to explain the spatiotemporal variations of radiation partitioning parameters in high‐altitude alpine grasslands.