Greenland Ice Sheet Darkens as Climate Warms

The Greenland Ice Sheet is continuing to darken as temperatures warm. Scientists have found that the darkening ice sheet is due to climate change.

As temperatures increase, enhanced melting occurs on the Greenland Ice Sheet. What's interesting is that as this melting occurs, there's also a darkening of the ice sheet. A particularly noticeable change occurred between 1996 and 2012, which was promoted by persistently increasing surface snow grain size, the expansion and persistency of areas of exposed bare ice and increased surface impurities concentration associated with the appearance of dirty ice. It was also promoted by increased impurities concentrations due to consolidation with snowmelt.

So what does this mean exactly? As temperatures warm, it seems as if more sediment is exposed. This, in turn, darkens the ice sheet. Since snow reflects heat more than other materials, this ice sheet darkening actually exacerbates the issue. In fact, it could cause the ice sheet to melt more rapidly over time.

The researchers also found that there was no evidence that points to increased atmospheric deposition of impurities or to the number of fires over Eurasia and North America as being factors.

The findings reveal that the Greenland ice sheet is indeed darkening and that it's darkening as the climate warms. That said, further research is needed to see if this will speed up the melting process in the future.

The findings were presented at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly in Vienna.

For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).