Dark Snow
gregladen | May 14, 2014The Dark Snow Project is staring up again, it being almost summer(ish) in Greenland.
The results in the study of the odd 2012 winter are now in. That year, there was a huge spike in melting on the surface of Greenland. (Discussed here.) One idea is that a good part of this melting was caused by extra soot from extensive wildfires in North America, which increased the amount of solar energy collected on the ice surface.
The results confirm this, and the Dark Snow team is returning this year to collect more information.
Here's a video giving an overview of the project, from Peter Sinclair'…
gregladen | August 3, 2013Follow Climate Crocks for regular updates on the Dark Snow project. Meanwhile, have a look at this TED talk.
gregladen | June 12, 2013Obviously, you don't want to help melt the ice cap. But you can help scientists figure out how and why it is happening and to learn important details of what might be one of the most important effects of global warming happening right now.
First, a word on why this is important. Look out the window. If you live in Bavaria, and you look out your window, perhaps you can see fish swimming by because you are in the middle of a huge flood affecting Central Europe. Look out the window. If you live in the American Midwest, it is either raining, about to rain, or it just rained, and you might be…
gregladen | May 16, 2013The melting of the Greenland ice sheet is a problem, and it seems to be happening faster than scientists had originally thought it might. This is probably because of soot darkening the snow, which collects solar heat and melts the ice. Some, perhaps much, of this soot may come from the extensive fires we are experiencing. That increase in fires is probably caused by global warming. The problem is, we don't know enough about the "Dark Snow" phenomenon. There is a group of scientists trying to study this, and they have turned to Crowd Funding to help make this possible.
Here is recent…