The Dark Snow Project is a field and lab exploration to measure the impact of changing wildfire and industrial soot and snow microbes on snow and ice reflectivity.

The project

Its initial goal was to raise funding to transport a research team to Greenland. The crowd funding campaign was successful. The funds were spent primarily on commercial air travel and chartering a helicopter to transport the team onto the

Greenland ice sheet The Greenland ice sheet is an ice sheet which forms the second largest body of ice in the world. It is an average of thick and over thick at its maximum. It is almost long in a north–south direction, with a maximum width of at a latitude ...

. One of its members, climatologist

Jason Box Jason Eric Box is an American glaciologist who is professor in glaciology at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. For 10 years (2002-2012) he worked at Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, eventually a tenured physical ...

, is a professor at the

Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland () is the independent sector research institute under the Danish Ministry of Climate and Energy. Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, GEUS also maintains field offices in Nuuk, Greenland. GEUS is a ...

and used to work at the

Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center The Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center (BPCRC) is a polar, alpine, and climate research center at Ohio State University founded in 1960. History and research The Byrd Polar Research Center (BPRC) at Ohio State University was established in ...

. Peter Sinclair, a YouTube blogger from

Midland, Michigan Midland is a city in Midland County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. The population was 42,547 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Midland metropolitan statistical area, part of the larger Saginaw-Midland-Bay City ...

who makes global warming related videos, was invited to participate and ultimately was a powerful co-producer of the work.

Bill McKibben William Ernest McKibben (born December 8, 1960)"Bill Ernest McKibben." ''Environmental Encyclopedia''. Edited by Deirdre S. Blanchfield. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009. Retrieved via ''Biography in Context'' database, December 31, 2017. is a ...

was to participate with the Greenland field team. McKibben ultimately could not make the trip. Rolling Stone magazine supported alternatively Jeff Goodell who wrote a magazine piece on Box's work and Dark Snow Project. Their project has been promoted on

The Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television television channel, channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are located in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel ...

.Dark Snow Project on The Weather Channel
/ref> If they succeed in proving that the soot from wildfires contributed to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, then Box intends to encourage wildfire management "through the indirect policy of

greenhouse gas emission Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide (), from burning fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, oil, and natural gas, is the main cause of climate chan ...

reduction." Once they reach Greenland, "Box hopes to drill into the inland ice sheet to examine the

black carbon Black carbon (BC) is the light-absorbing refractory form of Chemical_element, elemental carbon remaining after pyrolysis (e.g., charcoal) or produced by incomplete combustion (e.g., soot). Tihomir Novakov originated the term black carbon in ...

littering the layers of snow, in order to determine where it's coming from: tundra fires, exhaust from ships, or manufacturing dust from the continents, for example."

Funding

Box originally asked for funding from the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

's rapid funding program, but his request was turned down. As a result, the project has brought new attention to the concept of

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and Alternative Finance, alternative finance, to fund projects "withou ...

with regard to research projects. As

Outside Outside or Outsides may refer to: * Wilderness Books and magazines * ''Outside'', a book by Marguerite Duras * ''Outside'' (magazine), an outdoors magazine Film, theatre and TV * Outside TV (formerly RSN Television), a television network * '' ...

put it, "If it takes off, crowdfunded science could create a platform for more nimble, fast-paced research that isn't bogged down by bureaucracy."

Results

In October 2014, the Dark Snow Project published a blog on some findings, and noted surprising dark surfaces of Greenland ice.

Background

Soot Soot ( ) is a mass of impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons. Soot is considered a hazardous substance with carcinogenic properties. Most broadly, the term includes all the particulate matter produced b ...

darkens snow and ice, increasing solar energy absorption, hastening the melt of the

cryosphere The cryosphere is an umbrella term for those portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid form. This includes sea ice, ice on lakes or rivers, snow, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen ground (which includes permafrost). Thus, there ...

." The soot comes in part from wildfires, of which there were many in 2012. Also in 2012, almost all of the surface of Greenland was observed to be melting."Shocking" Greenland Ice Melt: Global Warming or Just Heat Wave?
/ref> The increase in size of the wildfires may itself be a result of global warming.

References

External links