Dark zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet controlled by distributed biologically-active impurities

The surface types that comprise the dark zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet, an area of bare ice with low albedo, are unknown. Here, the authors use UAV imagery to show that, during the melt-season, biologically active surface impurities are responsible for spatial albedo patterns and the dark zone its...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature Communications
Main Authors: Jonathan C. Ryan, Alun Hubbard, Marek Stibal, Tristram D. Irvine-Fynn, Joseph Cook, Laurence C. Smith, Karen Cameron, Jason Box
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2018
Subjects:
Q
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03353-2
https://doaj.org/article/4bac3a9803014633825f805b8aba53e6
Description
Summary:The surface types that comprise the dark zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet, an area of bare ice with low albedo, are unknown. Here, the authors use UAV imagery to show that, during the melt-season, biologically active surface impurities are responsible for spatial albedo patterns and the dark zone itself.