Land-surface albedo varies strongly in space and time depending on climate, soil moisture states, vegetation distribution and evolution, and snow metamorphism processes. A brief review on the treatment of albedo in state-of-the-art land-surface models will be given. Short-comings and consequences will be discussed in conjunction with observed albedo data. Uncertainty in predicted albedo will be analyzed for selected examples of albedo parameterizations. These estimates will to understand what accuracy is needed in data sets for evaluation. Methods to use satellite derived albedo values for model improvements will briefly addressed.