Reports from the Greenland Ice - DarkSnow 2014

Peter Sinclair is a science communicator and journalist that is part of the Dark Snow team that travels to Greenland each year. Dark Snow has been one of the projects working to observe and quantify the effects of airborne soot (dark carbon) and microorganism growth on the Greenland ice sheet. The 2014 expedition is over.

The Dark Snow Project main site:
http://darksnowproject.org/

Dark Snow reports from Sinclair's "Climate Crocks" blog:
http://climatecrocks.com/?s=dark+snow








http://climatecrocks.com/2014/08/13/dark-snow-2014-sealed-with-a-kiss/

We are all completely whipped, sore and exhausted. We’ve thankfully had the chance to shower and have a night between warm, dry, sheets.

I spent today going thru some of the material collected during the previous 12 days. There is enough here to fill out months of videos and blog posts. There will also be significant science published from our collective efforts in coming months.

To all of our supporters: Deepest thanks – I think you’ll be pleased with the products of our efforts.

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd7BpNgmK6I[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aKbnhrPuC4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PEi0Retg8A[/youtube]



http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_t...d_s_dark_snow_raises_more_concerns_about.html

The ice in Greenland this year isn’t just a little dark—it’s record-setting dark. Box says he’s never seen anything like it. I spoke to Box by phone earlier this month, just days after he returned from his summer field research campaign.

“I was just stunned, really,” Box told me.

The photos he took this summer in Greenland are frightening. But their implications are even more so. Just like black cars are hotter to the touch than white ones on sunny summer days, dark ice melts much more quickly.

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Is this surprising and unusual? I've no point of reference. Was the expedition to establish a point of reference?

The last photo appears to show glacial movement over a dark brown land surface, probably a rock surface covered with pre-existing organic (soil) materials. As the glacier erodes the land and rolls as it flows, it'll lift this material, and if there is plenty of organic matter then I'd expect it to promote algal growth as that eroded matter comes to the surface and is exposed to the Sun. Unsurprisingly, the leading edge of the glacier is almost completely black, so is clearly due to it being at that leading edge, rather than because of deposits settling out from the air above.

If it wasn't due to material lifted from the land surface by the glacier, then it would be an effect seen in sea ice too. Is it?

donald said:

Is this surprising and unusual? I've no point of reference. Was the expedition to establish a point of reference?

The last photo appears to show glacial movement over a dark brown land surface, probably a rock surface covered with pre-existing organic (soil) materials. As the glacier erodes the land and rolls as it flows, it'll lift this material, and if there is plenty of organic matter then I'd expect it to promote algal growth as that eroded matter comes to the surface and is exposed to the Sun. Unsurprisingly, the leading edge of the glacier is almost completely black, so is clearly due to it being at that leading edge, rather than because of deposits settling out from the air above.

If it wasn't due to material lifted from the land surface by the glacier, then it would be an effect seen in sea ice too. Is it?

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It's from the atmosphere. When a thick layer of snow and ice melts away the deposits from that entire layer end up as a thin concentrated layer on the new surface. I used to see this all the time growing up near Cleveland, OH. Once the large snowpiles along the street curbs started melting, they would get dingy, and eventually completely black, from accumulated vehicle exhaust particulates. A 6-foot tall pile of white snow would end looking like a 6-inch cinder. But if you broke it open you could see clean ice inside.

Nubo said:

It's from the atmosphere. When a thick layer of snow and ice melts away the deposits from that entire layer end up as a thin concentrated layer on the new surface. I used to see this all the time growing up near Cleveland, OH. Once the large snowpiles along the street curbs started melting, they would get dingy, and eventually completely black, from accumulated vehicle exhaust particulates. A 6-foot tall pile of white snow would end looking like a 6-inch cinder. But if you broke it open you could see clean ice inside.

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So are you confirming that it is an effect that is seen on sea ice too?

Why does this atmospheric dust settle more on the edges of the depicted glacier than in the middle parts?

I think you would find that the reason road-side snow is so dirty is the material thrown up off the road surface. I find it incomprehensible that snow will get that dirty from exhaust emissions in this day and age of emissions controls. If that were the case, why is it only the road-side snow, yet not the snow you would find in a park area just a few more metres further away?

donald said:

Is this surprising and unusual? I've no point of reference. Was the expedition to establish a point of reference?

The last photo appears to show glacial movement over a dark brown land surface, probably a rock surface covered with pre-existing organic (soil) materials. As the glacier erodes the land and rolls as it flows, it'll lift this material, and if there is plenty of organic matter then I'd expect it to promote algal growth as that eroded matter comes to the surface and is exposed to the Sun. Unsurprisingly, the leading edge of the glacier is almost completely black, so is clearly due to it being at that leading edge, rather than because of deposits settling out from the air above.

If it wasn't due to material lifted from the land surface by the glacier, then it would be an effect seen in sea ice too. Is it?

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It's very surprising and unusual, yes. Check out the Dark Snow Project website and look for Jason Box - he's an expert on this area. Read the articles as well - there's no doubt that this is not normal.

donald said:

Nubo said:

It's from the atmosphere. When a thick layer of snow and ice melts away the deposits from that entire layer end up as a thin concentrated layer on the new surface. I used to see this all the time growing up near Cleveland, OH. Once the large snowpiles along the street curbs started melting, they would get dingy, and eventually completely black, from accumulated vehicle exhaust particulates. A 6-foot tall pile of white snow would end looking like a 6-inch cinder. But if you broke it open you could see clean ice inside.

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So are you confirming that it is an effect that is seen on sea ice too?

Why does this atmospheric dust settle more on the edges of the depicted glacier than in the middle parts?

I think you would find that the reason road-side snow is so dirty is the material thrown up off the road surface. I find it incomprehensible that snow will get that dirty from exhaust emissions in this day and age of emissions controls. If that were the case, why is it only the road-side snow, yet not the snow you would find in a park area just a few more metres further away?

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What you think is incomprehensible doesn't quite trump the fact that I grew up and lived there, and witnessed the snow piles growing blacker day by day, and examined them closely, dug into them, etc as young boys are wont to do. I wasn't describing "this day and age", but primarily the 1960's in Cleveland Ohio. In addition to nearly unregulated auto emissions, we had a huge steel plant and coke facility, and various heavy manufacturing.

The roadside snow piles contained a far higher mass of snow than fallen snow or snow drifts away from the road. The piles were accumulations of plowed snow from the road and snow shoveled off of sidewalks. They could be an entire winter's accumulation, even though snow might have fallen and melted elsewhere a dozen times.

I can also tell you that the phenomenon was greatly reduced by the time I moved away in the early 1990's.

While the edges of that glacier may be more dirty the entire surface is dark. Glacier ice doesn't churn from bottom to top along its length. It flows in a laminar fashion.

Mt Blanc, 1890



Some other Alpen glacier, 1890


McCall Glacier, 1958


Bruarjokull, 1964


Dachstein Glacier 1967


Svinafelljökull - how black do you want a glacier to get?


I'm not convinced it is out of the ordinary. For sure, why glaciers are black and what algae is growing there is interesting and worth looking at. I'm sure more can be learned. But black glaciers do not seem rare, nor a phenomena unique to the modern age.

donald said:

Mt Blanc, 1890
I'm not convinced it is out of the ordinary. For sure, why glaciers are black and what algae is growing there is interesting and worth looking at. I'm sure more can be learned. But black glaciers do not seem rare, nor a phenomena unique to the modern age.

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Certainly, atmospheric dust and algae are nothing new.

The devil is in the details. Is the phenomenon accelerating, where and by how much? Important questions since the dark deposits are both related to how much has melted, and accelerate the melting.

Nubo said:

The devil is in the details. Is the phenomenon accelerating, where and by how much? Important questions since the dark deposits are both related to how much has melted, and accelerate the melting.

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I agree that these are the questions of merit, hence me asking if there was a point of reference for the study site. If the study site has never been surveyed before, then these questions cannot find conclusions until it has been monitored for several years.

donald said:

Nubo said:

The devil is in the details. Is the phenomenon accelerating, where and by how much? Important questions since the dark deposits are both related to how much has melted, and accelerate the melting.

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I agree that these are the questions of merit, hence me asking if there was a point of reference for the study site. If the study site has never been surveyed before, then these questions cannot find conclusions until it has been monitored for several years.

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Did you read the linked material, Donald? Signs continue to suggest that you have not.

From the very first link, one can find that:

Dr. Jason Box has been investigating Greenland ice sheet sensitivity to weather and climate as part of 23 expeditions to Greenland since 1994. His time camping on the inland ice exceeds 1 year. Year 2012 brought a deeper level of insight as the scientific perspective shifts to examine the interactions ice with atmospheric and ocean systems, including the role of fire in darkening the cryosphere. As part of his academic enterprise, Box has authored or co-authored 50+ peer-reviewed publications related to Greenland cryosphere-climate interactions.

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This is only the info from this team - the rest of the world has been tracking, imaging, studying, and modeling this ice for years as well.

Had you clicked on the video linked in the 2nd post and just watched the first few seconds, you'd have learned that this ice has been studied intensely for at least the past 11 years and in that time "...doubling of the mass loss rate in the past decade..."

Had you clicked the link to the Slate article, you'd have seen that the dark snow is not an effect seen only at the ice-rock transition.

This year, Greenland’s ice sheet was the darkest Box (or anyone else) has ever measured. Box gives the stunning stats: “In 2014 the ice sheet is precisely 5.6 percent darker, producing an additional absorption of energy equivalent with roughly twice the US annual electricity consumption.”

Perhaps coincidentally, 2014 will also be the year with the highest number of forest fires ever measured in Arctic.

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Had you clicked the videos in the first post, you'd have learned that the team has been tracking soot from forest fires in addition to quantifying algae growth. In the 2nd post you can see a chart of fire activity.

That's why a comment such as this is significant:

The ice in Greenland this year isn’t just a little dark—it’s record-setting dark. Box says he’s never seen anything like it...“I was just stunned, really,” Box told me...The photos he took this summer in Greenland are frightening.

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If *that* degree of glacial blackening is due to forest fires, then *all* cryosphere ice is subject to that degree of blackening, and I'm afraid I have simply seen no evidence of that.

So, as nubo rightly clarifies and I am therefore bound to agree, the question is not if the visible blackening in the photos you have illustrated are due to forest fires, it is what fraction of that blackening is, and is it an accelerating phenomena?

Frankly, I think there is an error of scientific method in picking such a dirty glacier to look for soot particles. You'd want to pick pristine ice that is likely to contain ONLY soot particles rather than a glacier like this which clearly contains a significant volume of glacial sediments.

A cursory inspection of those photos evidently indicates what can be seen as 'black' is not from the atmosphere, as the blackening is highest at the edges of the glacier, and the atmosphere is not skilled at placing soot particles in a particularly precise place.

This is self-evident.

It troubles me that folks set aside their own investigative powers of logical thought as soon as someone says they have published a journal paper.

I do understand the logic of looking at how much such darkening is accelerated. It is a relevant factor to know, and algal activity might well accelerate that. However, this is one area where there is a certain degree of 'so what' about it - what would there be, to be done?

donald said:

IA cursory inspection of those photos evidently indicates what can be seen as 'black' is not from the atmosphere, as the blackening is highest at the edges of the glacier, and the atmosphere is not skilled at placing soot particles in a particularly precise place.

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Consider that the leading edge of a shrinking glacier is the interface experiencing the most melt. We're not talking about a static object that is collecting dust. What is now a black layer of soot was once a massive layer of snow and ice that probably appeared pristine. What is now perhaps a couple of grams of soot per square meter of glacier, was once a couple of grams of soot per many CUBIC meters of snow and ice.

I don't know. I do not know the dynamics of this glacier. If it is a receding glacier, I can see why you'd be saying that.

This is something like what I had in mind:

2-month time-lapse

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ai9Q27J2vc[/youtube]

I think we need to submit a new climate denial tactic to Climate Central: the Whirling Dervish.

One practicing this technique spins in place as fast as possible while alternately covering eyes and ears so as to give plausible deniability to their claims that they have not seen proof. They then emit various phrases that attempts to reinforce the significance of their doubt, attack messengers, and reiterate any of the other ~135 known denial messages.

Good on ya, Donald - you've invented a twist on the existing list of denial techniques. You might be an engineer after all!

The problem for understanding the dynamics is that if you watch that video a few times over you can see how the fissures on the surface are showing that the glacier is still advancing and rolling. So there is still erosion happening under that leading edge, even though it is also receding at the same time.

It is possible, might even be probable, that you are not seeing 'melt' happen there (I can't see any melt water flowing off it?) but instead as the centre of the glacier is flowing down, if the snow precipitation rates are very slow there is more glacier volume flowing down out of the exit route than there is snow pack to back fill it, so the flow will end up pulling the ice in from the sides.

I'm afraid I don't see glacial 'melt' there in that video, but it looks to me that the glacier is flowing more ice out than there is snow backing the glacier up. I believe liquid water is to be expected under the glacier, simply because of the physical shear that is going on (i.e. may be super-cooled) so as it flows down the cutting it is forming, any water that 'lubricates' those outer edges will freeze when it emerges, along with any sediment in the shear layer, and will be pulled back into the glacier. It is that supercooled liquid layer that transports the erosion sediment into the bulk of the glacier.

I'd have guessed that this glacier is more likely losing surface volume through sublimation than melt, but the rate that the height of that glacier drops in the video gives me the impression that the underlying core bulk volume is flowing through, underneath, to the exit at a much faster rate than the impression gained by looking at the surface behaviour.

I'm not offering any hard and fast conclusions, just saying I'm still not convinced I'm seeing anything unusual. We appear to be in a period of glacial recession, and I'd have imagined glacial recession looks exactly like this.

AndyH said:

One practicing this technique spins in place as fast as possible while alternately covering eyes and ears

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Can you not stick to a discussion of the evident facts, than resort to name-calling? The irony of hiding one's eyes seems to be lost on you. Have you seen the photos from 1800's? Have you seen sea ice with no such blackening, yet presumably would still be subject to 'soot'. Glaciers seem a very bad place to go look for soot as they will always be contaminated with glacial sediment. Are you blind to that simple observation?

The key here, I think, in their investigation is to ask whether whatever is churned up in that glacier causing algal growth is accelerated by the presence of 'seed quantities' soot. That seems a perfectly sensible question. But that visible blackness is clearly not soot on its own. Maybe you realise that already, and are being contrary just for an argument?

AndyH said:

I think we need to submit a new climate denial tactic to Climate Central: the Whirling Dervish.

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Andy, it doesn't matter what is said, who said it, what their scientific credentials are, how much research on climate change they have done or how many of their colleagues agree with their assessment. Donald knows better.

It's nothing to do with knowing better. It is about having one's own critical thought when a suggestion is implied. If the blackening was directly due to soot, why is the permanent pack ice not black too? It is a simple, self-justifying piece of logical probing, the answer to which should be illuminating one way or the other.

If you wish to unburden yourself of the trouble of thinking for yourself, and abandon any sort of logical critique of anyone who has a published paper, then feel free, but count me out of that sort of attitude. I am also absolutely sure that any authors of papers would prefer people to advance their critiques of their work (even if it is a misunderstanding because then they can think about how to make their work clearer still) than just nod along like those nodding dogs people have on the parcel shelf of their cars.