Many of the photos you see on the blog are taken with my Nikon camera and they send me stuff. This morning, I received this email above which connects the recent ice melts at the north pole to "climate change."
Well, kind of.
Look closely at the photo, including the shady area at upper left.
The ice is filthy. Why is that matter? Virgin ice bounces most of the energy back. Soot absorbs the sun's energy and accelerates the melting. Here is an example below.
To duplicate this effect, in December 2009, I spread two rows of fireplace soot on the snow in my backward. We started the morning with seven inches of snow on the ground. Only two inches melted in the pure snow. Four and a half inches melted in the dirty areas.
Where does the soot come from? Some papers suggest it is from China which can be seen in this photo.
Yes, there is a correlation between burning carbon fuels and soot. But, they are two different issues.
I really learned something here, I hope many will read and absorb this information. What a great article, thank you Mike.
ReplyDeleteCandace