A new CU Boulder study comparing dissolved black carbon deposition on ice and snow in ecosystems around the world (including Antarctica, the Arctic and alpine regions of the Himalayas, Rockies, Andes and Alps) shows that while concentrations vary widely, significant amounts can persist in both pristine and non-pristine areas of snow.
Black carbon is the soot-like byproduct of wildfires and fossil fuel consumption, able to be carried long distances via atmospheric transport. Because these black particles absorb more heat than white snow, the study of black carbon concentrations in glaciers is important for predicting future melt rates.
A new CU Boulder study comparing dissolved black carbon deposition on ice and snow in ecosystems around the world (including Antarctica, the Arctic and alpine regions of the Himalayas, Rockies, Andes and Alps) shows that while concentrations vary widely, significant amounts can persist in both pristine and non-pristine areas of snow.
Black carbon is the soot-like byproduct of wildfires and fossil fuel consumption, able to be carried long distances via atmospheric transport. Because these black particles absorb more heat than white snow, the study of black carbon concentrations in glaciers is important for predicting future melt rates.
Scientists have previously studied black carbon in areas with obvious nearby sources (such as a coal mine in Svalbard, Norway,) but less is known about its complex interactions in snow-covered areas further removed from human impact.
While the exact sources of black carbon are often difficult to pinpoint in remote areas, the researchers used molecular analysis of the black carbon along with analysis of wind patterns to show that Greenland’s ice sheet had recently seen clear effects of wildfires burning thousands of miles away in the Canadian Arctic.
“We could tell that the carbon was fresh from these fires,” said Alia Khan, a post-doctoral researcher in CU Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and former graduate student at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). “The molecular signature from these samples was distinctly different from the rest of our dataset.”
Continue reading at University of Colorado At Boulder
