Glaciers: A window into human impact on the global carbon cycle—Fossil fuel signature…in Alaskan ice

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/whrc-gaw021612.php

[font face=Times,Times New Roman,Serif]Public release date: 19-Feb-2012

Contact: Ian Vorster
[email protected]
508-524-0186
Woods Hole Research Center

[font size=5]Glaciers: A window into human impact on the global carbon cycle[/font]
[font size=4]Fossil fuel signature found in Alaskan ice[/font]

[font size=3]New clues as to how the Earth's remote ecosystems have been influenced by the industrial revolution are locked, frozen in the ice of glaciers. That is the finding of a group of scientists, including Robert Spencer of the Woods Hole Research Center. The research will be published in the March 2012 issue of Nature Geoscience.

Globally, glacier ice loss is accelerating, driven in part by the deposition of carbon in the form of soot or "black carbon," which darkens glacier surfaces and increases their absorption of light and heat. The burning of biomass – trees, leaves and other vegetation around the globe, often in fires associated with deforestation – and fossil fuel combustion, are the major sources of black carbon.

Spencer and his fellow scientists have conducted much of their research at the Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau, Alaska. Mendenhall and other glaciers that end their journey in the Gulf of Alaska receive a high rate of precipitation, which exacerbates the deposition of soot, but also makes for a good research site.

"We are finding this human derived signature in a corner of the U.S. that is traditionally viewed as being exceptionally pristine," Spencer notes. "The burning of biomass and fossil fuels has an impact we can witness in these glacier systems although they are distant from industrial centers, and it highlights that the surface biogeochemical cycles of today are universally post-industrial in a way we do not fully appreciate."

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1403

[Old and In the Way]

1. I throw woodash on my driveway in the winter.

I've got a hill that's a challenge when it gets snow and ice on it. The areas that I cover with woodash provide immediate traction, and are the 1st areas to melt when the sun is out. Same sort of thing I guess.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. 1st areas to melt when the sun is out.

Yes.

Snow and ice normally reflect roughly 90% of the sunlight that hits them. Put some soot on them, and they absorb more light, causing them to melt more rapidly.

[Old and In the Way]

3. So easy to understand, even a climate change denier should be able to figure it out.

If only their politics weren't informed by the same perpetrators that are responsible for it on a global scale.