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The culprit behind snowmelt floods isn’t temperature, it’s dirt
- anfractuosity 9y agoIs this is related to the albedo effect? I'm sure I read that with snow covered land, as snow melts and reveals darker land, you get a positive feedback loop that accelerates the melting of more snow.
- pizza 9y agoYup. Fantastic series on the dynamical process mathematics of the environment/climate change from John Baez https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/mathematics-and-the-environment-part-5/ https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/mathematics-...
- anfractuosity 9y agoOoh awesome that looks really good, I'll have to go through those.
- pjkundert 9y agoI've often wondered about the megatons of soot blowing over the north polar region from China. As someone who has lived with winter 6 months of the year for 50 years, I thought it was pretty obvious to everyone that by far the largest determinant of snow melt was albedo change due to soil contamination.
- jschwartzi 9y agoIt makes sense to me. One of the things you look for when kicking steps up a mountain snowfield is dirty snow. The dirt causes it to melt faster than surrounding snow, and when it refreezes it becomes a more stable surface to stand on and to kick steps into.
- throwaway5752 9y agoGoogle "ice albedo feedback" and you'll find that it's very well known among climate scientists modeling global warming, too.
- jxramos 9y agoHow thick of dust on the snow pack are we talking about here precisely?
- mark-r 9y agoI'm sorry I don't have a figure for you, but it doesn't have to be very thick. As the snow starts melting, the grime actually concentrates and becomes darker.
- jxramos 9y agothat's a great point, sort of like pen drawing on an inflated baloon, when it deflates the ink get super dark and concentrated.
- fnord77 9y agoI always thought a supervillian could just crop dust the south pole with carbon and do a lot of damage (or perhaps some more efficient way of dispersing some dark colored dust)
- DaveSapien 9y agoYoutuber Thunderf00t demonstrated something similar a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSJF5FJivIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSJF5FJivIc