No simple cause and effect for glacial melt
DOI: 10.1063/1.3463610
The spectacular Back Scatter image “Black Soot and Tibetan Glaciers” ( Physics Today, February 2010, page 72 ) is accompanied by a commentary suggesting that black soot from industry on the surrounding subcontinent is warming the lower atmosphere, darkening the glaciers’ surface, and dramatically increasing absorption of solar radiation and the rate of melting. The rate of accretion or ablation of mountain glaciers may be as much a result of precipitation as of surface temperature. Increasing the Himalayan massif’s surface temperature would just as likely enhance the Southeast Asian monsoons and bring more snowfall to the glaciers, thus causing them to grow rather than decay. In considering the complex feedback processes linking the surface to the atmosphere, it is dangerous to speculate on the net result.
More about the Authors
Michael Garstang. (mxg@swa.com) University of Virginia Charlottesville, US .
