The Guardian: Dark Snow Project Brings People Power to Climate Science
January 17, 2013
There is already much excitement in the arts, media and beyond about the potential of crowdfunding – via sites such as Kickstarter andIndieGoGo – to finance projects that might others have remained an unfulfilled dream. To date, though, few scientific expeditions have successfully utilised crowd-funding.
The Dark Snow Project hopes to change this. Jason Box, a climatologist based at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, is hoping to raise $150,000 over the coming months to pay for an expedition this summer up onto the “ice dome” of Greenland to gather samples of snow. The project’s website explains:
Dark Snow is a field and lab project to measure the impact of changing wildfire and industrial soot on snow and ice reflectivity. Soot darkens snow and ice, increasing solar energy absorption, hastening the melt of the “cryosphere”.
The climatic impact of “black carbon” and wildfire smoke is much in the news and yet remains little understood. Last year, Box presented satellite observations (pdf) showing how soot particles drifting from tundra wildfires spread across Greenland. The big as-yet-unanswered question is whether this soot contributed towards the region’s record melt during the summer of 2012. And, if so, by how much.
“We saw complete surface melting of the [Greenland] ice sheet for the first time in observation. Would that have happened without the wildfire soot of 2012?” Box told the Guardian in December. “We don’t know. We have got to get up there and make those measurements.”
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Box has also invited Peter Sinclair along as a team-member, who, as “Greenman3610“, is probably best known for his consistently excellent YouTube videos on climate change. (Sinclair produced the video above.) In the first instance, this will ensure that anyone who has made a donation will be kept up-to-date with the researchers’ progress. But it will also mean the wider world will gain a better insight into not just the science being conducted, but also the environmental implications of soot settling on the Arctic snow and ice.
Anyone wishing to make a donation can do so on the expedition’s “Give Now” webpage.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
January 17, 2013 at 3:22 pm
Very interesting, and very close to home here in the Rocky Mountain West. The theory is that dark particulate is melting snow pack at a quicker rate than average. This can mean anything from a shorter skiing season to less recharging of water in mountain reservoirs. Since Denver gets 80% of its water from these sources, this is important. Good on ya, Peter!
January 18, 2013 at 2:15 pm
Aside from donating to the project I found a video which I though I’d share because I think it’s rather smashing.
January 25, 2013 at 2:37 pm
Now 2012 is complete, I’ve made a new prettier Arctic Sea Ice animated graph using the latest PIOMAS data, with some of my music.
6 quad core servers crunched 800 frames at about half hour per frame per core.
January 31, 2013 at 3:43 pm
[…] Box is the creator of the Dark Snow Project, an ambitious attempt to Crowd-fund an arctic expedition this summer. Over the last decade, Jason’s measurements indicate that the surface of Greenland has […]
February 4, 2013 at 6:46 pm
[…] January 24th, 2013 Climate Denial Crock of the Week Dark Snow Project Brings People Power to Climate Science […]