Surface albedo greatly impacts how much energy the Earth absorbs. Intense human activities and rapid climate change have caused notable changes in surface albedo. Yet, how land use/land cover (LULC) and snow dynamics drive the global land surface mean albedo (GLMA) change is lack of comprehensive assessments to date. Thus, the GLMA dynamics over the last decades and their corresponding radiative forcing to the climate system remains poorly understood. Here, we construct a satellite-based, seamless monthly dataset of global land surface albedo and LULC look-up maps from 2001 to 2020. We then quantify the individual and combined effects of snow cover dynamics, LULC conversions and LULC non-conversion regions on albedo variations and their induced radiative forcing. From 2001 to 2020, GLMA increased by 0.6%, and the induced global radiative forcing was -0.0768±0.0253 W/m2. During the recent two decades, albedo over snow-free regions significantly increased by 2.28% with radiative forcing of -0.1257±0.0025 W/m2. This forcing was 2.5 times more than that induced by snow dynamics, and was equivalent in magnitude to 45.89% of that caused by CO2 emissions and 37.41% of that caused by the total greenhouse gas emissions from 2011 to 2019 estimated in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report. The global radiative forcing owing to LULC conversions was less than one-sixth of the forcing arising from the LULC non-conversion regions. The radiative forcing induced by albedo change highlights the important role of land surface dynamics in modulating global warming.