{"id":650,"date":"2018-04-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/cage\/2018\/04\/03\/algae-impurities-darken-the-greenland-ice-sheet-and-increase-melting\/"},"modified":"2023-04-04T10:31:54","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T08:31:54","slug":"algae-impurities-darken-the-greenland-ice-sheet-and-increase-melting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/cage\/2018\/04\/03\/algae-impurities-darken-the-greenland-ice-sheet-and-increase-melting\/","title":{"rendered":"Algae, impurities darken the Greenland ice sheet and increase melting"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dark Zone of the Greenland ice sheet has major impact on the surface melt of this immense store of ice. A new study in Nature Communications –  based on drone surveys – suggests that ice algae, dust and soot from wildfires and combustion are the main cause.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Text: Maja Sojtaric<\/h6>\n

<\/p>\n

The Dark Zone of Greenland ice sheet is a large continuous region on the western flank of the ice sheet; it is some 400 kilometers wide stretching about 100 kilometres up from the margin of the ice. <\/p>\n

Some previous theories have attributed this darkening to water on top of the ice sheet – often seen as strikingly sapphire blue ponds, rivers and lakes. But a new study in Nature Communications<\/a> provides a new hypothesis based on the character of the impurities on the ice surface itself.<\/p>\n

“What we show is that the Dark Zone is covered in a finely distributed layer of dust, and black carbon, which provide nutrition for dark coloured algae. These are the main cause of the darkening.” says professor Alun Hubbard, the co-author of the study and professor at CAGE.<\/p>\n

A dirt belt in the melt zone<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Dark Zone is a literally dirty belt of the melting area \u2013 the ablation zone<\/a> – of the ice sheet. The darker this ablation zone is, the more of the sun’s energy it absorbs, and the faster the ice melts.<\/p>\n

\"NASA
Satellite images of the dark zone of Greenland ice sheet clearly show the impure ice in remarkable contrast to the pristine snow. Satellites however miss out on details in the composition of the impurities. Photo: MODIS\/NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Albedo<\/a> is a measure of the reflectance of the ice sheet. It is the major factor governing how much incoming solar radiation is used to melt the ice and is the main positive feedback in Arctic climate change.  Bright white surfaces, like snow or pure ice, reflect the sun\u2019s energy, but dark surfaces absorb it.<\/p>\n

“The fact that a large portion of the western flank of the Greenland ice sheet has become dark means that the melt is up to five times as much as if it was a brilliant snow surface. ” says Hubbard.<\/p>\n

Algae – a major player<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ice algae seem to be one of the major players in this scheme – even the slight increase of the atmospheric temperature and liquid water production seems to promote algae colonization across the ice surface.<\/p>\n

\"Dark
This UAV image was captured on August 5, 2014, and offers a view of the tents and scientific equipment in the Dark Snow Project. Dark ice, rich with impurities, was particularly visible east of the melt stream near the camp. Photo: Dark Snow Project. J. Ryan\/ J.Box \/A.Hubbard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“The algae need nutrients and food, essentially dust, organic carbon, and water. In summer, these are plentiful and the algal bloom takes off. Because algae are dark in colour – they reinforce the dark zone. Thereby you get a positive feedback effect where the ice sheet absorbs even more solar radiation producing yet more melt.”<\/p>\n

Innovative drone study<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Dark Zone of the Greenland ice sheet is vast and previously observed by satellites such as MODIS<\/a>.  But for this study the scientists employed relatively modest drones – or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) – to survey the darkened ice belt in unprecedented detail. <\/p>\n

While satellite data are great for the big picture of what’s happening across the entire Greenland ice sheet, they only work at really coarse pixel resolutions.<\/p>\n

“If we compare it to camera pixels, even the best satellites for the ice sheet imaging have resolution of tens of metres.  They can’t see the detail of what\u2019s happening on the ground.  Our fixed-wing UAVs can take hundreds of images with pixel resolutions on the centimeter scale with an operating range of hundreds of kilometres.\u201d says Hubbard.<\/p>\n

Scientists could see in real detail what the dark zone is made up of.  In effect, this UAV survey across the ablation zone of the ice sheet perfectly bridges the gap between people on the ground studying what’s under their feet in just one part of the ice sheet, and the satellite data that shows what’s going on across the entire ice sheet. <\/p>\n

\"Greenland
Ice containing distributed impurities on the surface. Figure from the paper.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“The UAV survey, with its amazing detail, allows us to identify and characterize all the different surface types and impurities across the entire dark zone, not just a small local little part of it.” <\/p>\n

The AUV images used in this study were collected by Johnny Ryan (Aberystwyth University; Brown University; University of California), Jason Box (GEUS) and Alun Hubbard  (Aberystwyth University\/CAGE)  in the summer of 2014.<\/p>\n

Read more: 
\nDark Snow Project<\/a><\/p>\n

NASA Earth Observatory – Dark Snow Project<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reference<\/a><\/strong>: Ryan, J.C., Hubbard, A., Stibal M., Irvine-Flynn, T.D., Cook, J., Smith, L.C., Cameron, K. & Box, J. Dark zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet controlled by distributed biologically-active impurities. Nature Communications <\/i>volume<\/span> 9<\/b>, Article number: 1065<\/span> (2018<\/span>) doi<\/abbr>:10.1038\/s41467-018-03353-2<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Dark Zone of the Greenland ice sheet has major impact on the surface melt … <\/p>\n

Read more \u00abAlgae, impurities darken the Greenland ice sheet and increase melting\u00bb<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123546,"featured_media":652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAlgae, impurities darken the Greenland ice sheet and increase melting - CAGE, Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/cage\/2018\/04\/03\/algae-impurities-darken-the-greenland-ice-sheet-and-increase-melting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Algae, impurities darken the Greenland ice sheet and increase melting - 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