Algal growth and weathering crust state drive variability in western Greenland Ice Sheet ice albedo
One of the primary controls upon the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is albedo, a measure of how much solar radiation that hits a surface is reflected without being absorbed. Lower-albedo snow and ice surfaces therefore warm more quickly. There is a major difference in the albedo of snow-c...
Published in: | The Cryosphere |
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Copernicus Publications
2020
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-521-2020 https://www.the-cryosphere.net/14/521/2020/tc-14-521-2020.pdf https://doaj.org/article/eb859b496ee54767a5c9057172a386ea |
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fttriple:oai:gotriple.eu:oai:doaj.org/article:eb859b496ee54767a5c9057172a386ea 2023-05-15T16:21:31+02:00 Algal growth and weathering crust state drive variability in western Greenland Ice Sheet ice albedo A. J. Tedstone J. M. Cook C. J. Williamson S. Hofer J. McCutcheon T. Irvine-Fynn T. Gribbin M. Tranter 2020-02-01 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-521-2020 https://www.the-cryosphere.net/14/521/2020/tc-14-521-2020.pdf https://doaj.org/article/eb859b496ee54767a5c9057172a386ea en eng Copernicus Publications doi:10.5194/tc-14-521-2020 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://www.the-cryosphere.net/14/521/2020/tc-14-521-2020.pdf https://doaj.org/article/eb859b496ee54767a5c9057172a386ea undefined The Cryosphere, Vol 14, Pp 521-538 (2020) geo envir Journal Article https://vocabularies.coar-repositories.org/resource_types/c_6501/ 2020 fttriple https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-521-2020 2023-01-22T19:33:18Z One of the primary controls upon the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is albedo, a measure of how much solar radiation that hits a surface is reflected without being absorbed. Lower-albedo snow and ice surfaces therefore warm more quickly. There is a major difference in the albedo of snow-covered versus bare-ice surfaces, but observations also show that there is substantial spatio-temporal variability of up to ∼0.4 in bare-ice albedo. Variability in bare-ice albedo has been attributed to a number of processes including the accumulation of light-absorbing impurities (LAIs) and the changing physical properties of the near-surface ice. However, the combined impact of these processes upon albedo remains poorly constrained. Here we use field observations to show that pigmented glacier algae are ubiquitous and cause surface darkening both within and outside the south-west GrIS “dark zone” but that other factors including modification of the ice surface by algal bloom presence, surface topography and weathering crust state are also important in determining patterns of daily albedo variability. We further use observations from an unmanned aerial system (UAS) to examine the scale gap in albedo between ground versus remotely sensed measurements made by Sentinel-2 (S-2) and MODIS. S-2 observations provide a highly conservative estimate of algal bloom presence because algal blooms occur in patches much smaller than the ground resolution of S-2 data. Nevertheless, the bare-ice albedo distribution at the scale of 20 m×20 m S-2 pixels is generally unimodal and unskewed. Conversely, bare-ice surfaces have a left-skewed albedo distribution at MODIS MOD10A1 scales. Thus, when MOD10A1 observations are used as input to energy balance modelling, meltwater production can be underestimated by ∼2 %. Our study highlights that (1) the impact of the weathering crust state is of similar importance to the direct darkening role of light-absorbing impurities upon ice albedo and (2) there is a spatial-scale dependency in albedo ... Article in Journal/Newspaper glacier Greenland Ice Sheet The Cryosphere Unknown Greenland The Cryosphere 14 2 521 538 |
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language |
English |
topic |
geo envir |
spellingShingle |
geo envir A. J. Tedstone J. M. Cook C. J. Williamson S. Hofer J. McCutcheon T. Irvine-Fynn T. Gribbin M. Tranter Algal growth and weathering crust state drive variability in western Greenland Ice Sheet ice albedo |
topic_facet |
geo envir |
description |
One of the primary controls upon the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is albedo, a measure of how much solar radiation that hits a surface is reflected without being absorbed. Lower-albedo snow and ice surfaces therefore warm more quickly. There is a major difference in the albedo of snow-covered versus bare-ice surfaces, but observations also show that there is substantial spatio-temporal variability of up to ∼0.4 in bare-ice albedo. Variability in bare-ice albedo has been attributed to a number of processes including the accumulation of light-absorbing impurities (LAIs) and the changing physical properties of the near-surface ice. However, the combined impact of these processes upon albedo remains poorly constrained. Here we use field observations to show that pigmented glacier algae are ubiquitous and cause surface darkening both within and outside the south-west GrIS “dark zone” but that other factors including modification of the ice surface by algal bloom presence, surface topography and weathering crust state are also important in determining patterns of daily albedo variability. We further use observations from an unmanned aerial system (UAS) to examine the scale gap in albedo between ground versus remotely sensed measurements made by Sentinel-2 (S-2) and MODIS. S-2 observations provide a highly conservative estimate of algal bloom presence because algal blooms occur in patches much smaller than the ground resolution of S-2 data. Nevertheless, the bare-ice albedo distribution at the scale of 20 m×20 m S-2 pixels is generally unimodal and unskewed. Conversely, bare-ice surfaces have a left-skewed albedo distribution at MODIS MOD10A1 scales. Thus, when MOD10A1 observations are used as input to energy balance modelling, meltwater production can be underestimated by ∼2 %. Our study highlights that (1) the impact of the weathering crust state is of similar importance to the direct darkening role of light-absorbing impurities upon ice albedo and (2) there is a spatial-scale dependency in albedo ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
A. J. Tedstone J. M. Cook C. J. Williamson S. Hofer J. McCutcheon T. Irvine-Fynn T. Gribbin M. Tranter |
author_facet |
A. J. Tedstone J. M. Cook C. J. Williamson S. Hofer J. McCutcheon T. Irvine-Fynn T. Gribbin M. Tranter |
author_sort |
A. J. Tedstone |
title |
Algal growth and weathering crust state drive variability in western Greenland Ice Sheet ice albedo |
title_short |
Algal growth and weathering crust state drive variability in western Greenland Ice Sheet ice albedo |
title_full |
Algal growth and weathering crust state drive variability in western Greenland Ice Sheet ice albedo |
title_fullStr |
Algal growth and weathering crust state drive variability in western Greenland Ice Sheet ice albedo |
title_full_unstemmed |
Algal growth and weathering crust state drive variability in western Greenland Ice Sheet ice albedo |
title_sort |
algal growth and weathering crust state drive variability in western greenland ice sheet ice albedo |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-521-2020 https://www.the-cryosphere.net/14/521/2020/tc-14-521-2020.pdf https://doaj.org/article/eb859b496ee54767a5c9057172a386ea |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
glacier Greenland Ice Sheet The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
glacier Greenland Ice Sheet The Cryosphere |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, Vol 14, Pp 521-538 (2020) |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/tc-14-521-2020 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://www.the-cryosphere.net/14/521/2020/tc-14-521-2020.pdf https://doaj.org/article/eb859b496ee54767a5c9057172a386ea |
op_rights |
undefined |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-521-2020 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
14 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
521 |
op_container_end_page |
538 |
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