“ There’s no place on earth that’s changing faster — and no place where that change matters more — than Greenland. ”
– Bill McKibben

dark_snow_wordmark_blackThe first-ever Greenland expedition relying on crowd source funding aims to answer the ‘burning question’: How much does wildfire and industrial soot darken the ice, increasing melt?

Fossil fuel combustion creates carbon emissions that increase atmospheric thickness, warming climate. The occurrence of wildfire increases with climate warming, increasing soot loading of the atmosphere. Some of this soot is transported through the atmosphere and is deposited on glaciers, lowering their reflectivity, increasing solar energy absorption, increasing melt rates.

While watching wildfires raging across his home state of Colorado, climatologist Jason Box was struck by the question of whether the dark wildfire soot could contribute to the Greenland melting?

Dark Snow is a field and lab project to measure the impact of changing wildfire and industrial soot on snow and ice reflectivity. Soot darkens snow and ice, increasing solar energy absorption, hastening the melt of the “cryosphere”.

They mounted an expedition to Greenland to consider the impacts. A lot of their work is fairly technical. But its an intriguing concept.

Check their website for details and updates.