Algal growth and weathering crust state drive variability in western Greenland Ice Sheet ice albedo
Details
Serval ID
serval:BIB_5E75C582A5D9
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Algal growth and weathering crust state drive variability in western Greenland Ice Sheet ice albedo
Journal
The Cryosphere
ISSN
1994-0424
Publication state
Published
Issued date
11/02/2020
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
14
Number
2
Pages
521-538
Language
english
Abstract
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 measurement which reduces detection of real changes at coarser resolutions.
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Publisher's website
Open Access
Yes
Funding(s)
European Research Council (ERC)
Leverhulme Trust / 2018-584
Create date
29/08/2024 10:03
Last modification date
22/11/2024 11:00