What happens to the ice-albedo feedback loop when you add dark-colored black carbon, or soot, from pollution? After traveling from its sources (often thousands of miles away) on air currents, it settles onto land and into the oceans. On ice and snow, soot darkens these normally bright surfaces. Instead of reflecting the sunlight, this darkened surface now absorbs more of the Sun’s radiation. Moreover, as glaciers and ice sheets melt, they tend to get even dirtier as the soot becomes more concentrated, speeding up the process of melting. This conceptual animation shows how soot-darkened ice retains more heat, lowers the albedo, and leads to increased melting.
Credit: NASA/USGS
