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The impact of Saharan dust and black carbon on albedo and long-term mass balance of an Alpine glacier

  • Gabbi, J. Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW), ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
  • Huss, Matthias Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW), ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland - Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
  • Bauder, Andreas Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW), ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
  • Cao, F. Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Villigen PSI, Switzerland - Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China
  • Schwikowski, M. Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Villigen PSI, Switzerland
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    30.07.2015
Published in:
  • The Cryosphere. - 2015, vol. 9, no. 4, p. 1385–1400
English Light-absorbing impurities in snow and ice control glacier melt as shortwave radiation represents the main component of the surface energy balance. Here, we investigate the long-term effect of snow impurities, i.e., mineral dust and black carbon (BC), on albedo and glacier mass balance. The analysis was performed over the period 1914–2014 for two sites on Claridenfirn, Swiss Alps, where an outstanding 100-year record of seasonal mass balance measurements is available. Information on atmospheric deposition of mineral dust and BC over the last century was retrieved from two firn/ice cores of high-alpine sites. A combined mass balance and snow/firn layer model was employed to assess the effects of melt and accumulation processes on the impurity concentration at the surface and thus on albedo and glacier mass balance. Compared to pure snow conditions, the presence of Saharan dust and BC lowered the mean annual albedo by 0.04–0.06 depending on the location on the glacier. Consequently, annual melt was increased by 15–19 %, and the mean annual mass balance was reduced by about 280–490 mm w.e. BC clearly dominated absorption which is about 3 times higher than that of mineral dust. The upper site has experienced mainly positive mass balances and impurity layers were continuously buried whereas at the lower site, surface albedo was more strongly influenced by re-exposure of dust and BC-enriched layers due to frequent years with negative mass balances.
Faculty
Faculté des sciences et de médecine
Department
Département de Géosciences
Language
  • English
Classification
Hydrology
License
License undefined
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Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/304797
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