Dark Snow Project

Dark Snow Project is coordinated by:
Jason E. Box, PhD,
Professor at the Geologic Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS)
Email: jbox.greenland@gmail.com

All donations are collected through our charitable foundation:
Earth Insight Foundation Inc.

Expedition Plan 2013

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 20:23:18 +0000

Prepare and gather science equipment including a field spectrometer, snow and ice coring device, and snow metrics kit.
Travel to Iqualuit, on Baffin Island, Nunavut from home locales in California, Ohio, Michigan, Vermont and rendezvous with Dash-6 "Twin Otter" ski-equipped airplane and flight crew.
Organize cold weather survival kit.
Ferry team from Iqualuit to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland.
Fly to and land at sampling sites high on the inland ice sheet.
At each site collect snow samples from a snow pit and obtain snow cores to a minimum depth of the previous year's snow surface, and record snow properties.
Transport of team and snow samples to Greenland's capital Nuuk, where the team will rest after hustling at field sites.
Return to Iqualuit, then to respective home locales to start the data analysis and reporting phase of campaign.

Continue reading → Continue reading →

Supporters

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:20:58 +0000

Dark Snow is made possible by passionate supporters. Continue reading → Continue reading →

How the field work will go

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:15:29 +0000

We will land high up on the inland Ice Sheet with a ski-equipped airplane and dig snow pits to measure snow optical properties with a portable spectrometer. We will bring back snow samples to put through mass spectrometers and under powerful microscopes to fingerprint the source of the soot. Continue reading → Continue reading →

Why We Care

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 14:18:07 +0000

We're making an expedition to the Greenland to sample its snow to measure how important wild fire and industrial soot is in darkening the ice sheet. We know that soot strongly absorbs sunlight, heating the snow. Yet, we don't know how much the soot from wildfires is contributing to Greenland ice record setting melt. Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Mon, 03 Dec 2012 00:49:41 +0000

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All donations are tax deductible via our charitable foundation: Earth Insight Foundation Inc.

Central Southern Ice Sheet

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 19:26:48 +0000

High on the inland ice sheet where melting is rare, our satellite data show surface darkening making us suspect wildfire and industrial soot are to blame. Darkening here promotes snowpack heating, bringing earlier melt, keeping melt going longer. Here is where this feedback is changing the ice sheet in surprising ways, leading to complete surface melting in year 2012. Without the impact of soot, it's fair to expect that melting would not have been as extensive nor intense. Continue reading → Continue reading →

Area of Intense melting

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 19:18:21 +0000

At this part of the ice sheet, where the loss of winter snow during each melt season exposes impurity-rich bare ice, the surface reflectivity drops from 85% to 30%. Consequently, most of the 24 hour sunlight goes into ice melt. In this Dark Zone, the impact of soot manifests strongest in a self reinforcing feedback loop that Box’s research shows has doubled melt rates in the past decade. Continue reading → Continue reading →