The culprit behind snowmelt floods isn’t temperature, it’s dirt | Hacker News Reader

The culprit behind snowmelt floods isn’t temperature, it’s dirt

sciencemag.org

44 pointstim_sw11 comments

I'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.

It 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.

Google "ice albedo feedback" and you'll find that it's very well known among climate scientists modeling global warming, too.

Is 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.

Yup. Fantastic series on the dynamical process mathematics of the environment/climate change from John Baez

https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/mathematics-...

Ooh awesome that looks really good, I'll have to go through those.

I 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)

Youtuber Thunderf00t demonstrated something similar a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSJF5FJivIc

How thick of dust on the snow pack are we talking about here precisely?

I'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.

that's a great point, sort of like pen drawing on an inflated baloon, when it deflates the ink get super dark and concentrated.

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