Earthsky Interviews
Private: Dirty snow a culprit in Arctic warming?
09-01-2007 - Earth
Photo:
Carol Walker
Airborne particles – soot from industrial smokestacks, car exhaust, dust and forest fires – can darken Arctic snow. Darker snow causes it to absorb sunlight.
It’s the same as when you wear a dark shirt on a sunny day. Many studies point to greenhouse gas emissions as the cause of Earth’s warming climate over the past two centuries.
Charlie Zender: _Surprisingly, dirty snow plays a role comparable to the role of greenhouse gases in causing polar climate warming._
That’s Charlie Zender of the University of California, co-author of the darkened snow study, published in June 2007. The study indicated that up to 19% of Earth’s total warming over the past two centuries could be caused by darkened snow. And Zender’s worried that darker snow is causing glaciers and sea ice to retreat.
Zender: _And when those glaciers or summer sea ice cover disappear they reveal darker land underneath which causes a very strong climate response._
Our thanks today to “NASA”:http://www.nasa.gov: explore, discover, understand.
Our thanks to:
Charlie Zender
Associate Professor of Earth System Science
University of California
Why do all the industries know that they ae poluting and destroying our ice caps but they really don’t care?!
If we all take a stand and do what is right we might be able to stop it in time before they melt!
I get the feeling that it’s too late to stop it (the melting ice caps). What do we tell our kids, besides “sell the beach house” ?
“Sell the beach house” is probably a good start. Don’t buy land in a desert might be another (although who knows … weather patterns could change and that desert could become a garden).
Tell them life on Earth has always been uncertain! Tell them lots of smart people are thinking about solutions to human problems in the 21st century. Tell them there’s plenty of reason to have hope and faith in human intelligence, cooperativeness and adaptability. Tell them to be aware, and try to help.
That’s what I tell my kids, anyway … not that they listen.
Deborah
How to prevent the glaciers and sea ice from retreating is the urgent problem for us.
I should study harder so that i hope that i can contribute my strength to solve this problem to relief earth from greenhouse effect in the future.
If we were to do regular cloud seeding to promote snowfall, it would keep fresh white snow on top of dirty snow and on top of bare earth. It’s not a cure, but it should slow down the process. That would give us time to get politicians elected, who care about what God created.
Interesting idea Steve!
Even if the ice caps are melting, theres so much ice in antarctica it would take I think more then 500 years to melt.
Join Steve and pray. God is listening and watching. Awesome picture Alice Walker. Save it everybody.
Join Steve and pray. God is listening and watching. Awesome picture Carol Walker. Save it everybody.
Dirty snow? In the arctic? I barely see it in the winter and I live in the suburbs. How does dirty snow get in the arctic? How does so much get there that it starts to warm up the north pole? Why cant scientists tell us something, then tell us why and how it happens or proove it.
By the way is that a star in that photo? Which one is it?