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Unaccounted for Arctic microbes appear to be speeding up glacier melting
http://www.microbiologysociety.org/news/society-news.cfm/arctic-microbes-speeding-up-glacier-melting[font face=Serif][font size=5]Unaccounted for Arctic microbes appear to be speeding up glacier melting[/font]
23 March 2016
[font size=3]Today, at the Microbiology Society’s Annual Conference in Liverpool, scientists will reveal how Arctic microbes are increasing the rate at which glaciers melt, in a process not accounted for in current climate change models.
The research, led by Dr Arwyn Edwards from Aberystwyth University, focuses on a grainy, soil-like substance found on the surface of Arctic ice known as cryoconite, which is made of dust and industrial soot glued together by photosynthetic bacteria. Working on Greenland’s ice sheet, the team showed that cryoconite darkens the surface of the ice, causing it to melt and make small water-filled holes. The bacterially-made granules self-regulate the depth and shape of these holes to maximise their exposure to sunlight, which in turn further melts the glacier’s surface ice. In summer, cryoconite holes pockmark the surface of the biologically productive region of the Greenland ice sheet, an area ten times the size of Wales (200,000 square kilometres), which is expanding as the climate warms.
Working on an icecap in Svalbard, in the far north of Norway, the team showed that this process is driven by a single species of photosynthetic bacteria, from the genus Phormidesmis.
…
Current models are unable to account effectively for the impacts of microbial growth on glacier and ice melting, so learning more about this Arctic ecosystem and the feedback is an important step to understanding future sea level rises.
…[/font][/font]
23 March 2016
[font size=3]Today, at the Microbiology Society’s Annual Conference in Liverpool, scientists will reveal how Arctic microbes are increasing the rate at which glaciers melt, in a process not accounted for in current climate change models.
The research, led by Dr Arwyn Edwards from Aberystwyth University, focuses on a grainy, soil-like substance found on the surface of Arctic ice known as cryoconite, which is made of dust and industrial soot glued together by photosynthetic bacteria. Working on Greenland’s ice sheet, the team showed that cryoconite darkens the surface of the ice, causing it to melt and make small water-filled holes. The bacterially-made granules self-regulate the depth and shape of these holes to maximise their exposure to sunlight, which in turn further melts the glacier’s surface ice. In summer, cryoconite holes pockmark the surface of the biologically productive region of the Greenland ice sheet, an area ten times the size of Wales (200,000 square kilometres), which is expanding as the climate warms.
Working on an icecap in Svalbard, in the far north of Norway, the team showed that this process is driven by a single species of photosynthetic bacteria, from the genus Phormidesmis.
…
Current models are unable to account effectively for the impacts of microbial growth on glacier and ice melting, so learning more about this Arctic ecosystem and the feedback is an important step to understanding future sea level rises.
…[/font][/font]
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