In German cities, fine dust as a major Problem. However, the tiny particles not only metropolises. Also in the uninhabited regions of the damage. They are carried by the Wind over large distances, even into the high mountains. There is, for example, in the already due to rising temperatures are shrinking Himalayan glaciers, accelerating the melting.
soot swallow the rays of the sun
Particularly effective soot. These small black particles caused by the combustion of Diesel, Oil and coal, but also wood and other biomass. They are deposited on glaciers, which reduces its ability to reflect the sun’s rays. As a result, the ice warms up. The Reflectivity, also known as Albedo, is an important feature of glaciers. In the case of fresh snow is about 90 percent. Compressed and sometimes wet summer, the snow comes on around 60 percent, And with soot, dirty ice cream, only 40 percent did, says Konrad Steffen, Director of the Swiss Federal research Institute for forest, snow and landscape (WSL) in the Swiss Birmensdorf. “The more particles are blown and the darker of the glacier and thus more prone for melting.”
What particles – often they are smaller than a thousandth of a Millimeter – these are exactly, is different depending on the place. Also, there is a dependence on the weather and location, which determines the direction of Approach. “In the Arctic we observe that the volume increases in particular in the case of soot particles for some time,” says Steffen. So it had been in the past year, large-scale forest fires in Alaska, the soot thousands of kilometres to Greenland flew, and the Albedo of the ice sheet to five percent have reduced. In Arctic areas, the Glaciologist expects in the future, even with more frequent forest and peat fires, as a result of climate change, the floors dry. “More soot is in the air, can walk on the glacier.” The amount alone, however, is not decisive. “How strong is the accumulated particles to the melt help, also depends on how long you are on the surface before renewed snowfall puts the glacier, so to speak, in a fresh condition.”
One of the most important reinforcing factors of climate change
This is done to be rare, the dirt effect balance. “The reduction of the Albedo of the particle is to the decrease in the sea ice cover is one of the most important reinforcing factors in climate change in the Arctic regions as well as in the Alps,” says Steffen. Researchers expect as a result of the albedo-related warming and the melting of even a two – to-three times the temperature increase in comparison to the global average. This would then reinforce the melt, more dark ground, which can heat up and then more would be exposed, and so on. “If we receive an average of two to three degrees more, it is in these areas, four to six degrees warmer.” This also applies to the Alps.
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For this mountains, count on experts, as a result, a decline in glaciers from 60 to 90 percent by the end of the century. You would be affected considerably more than other regions of the earth. One reason for this is that in the case of the Alps, the dust glaciers-induced decrease in Albedo will be higher than, for example, the Greenland ice sheet, Steffen says. The summer would be dry, so there will be less snow. On the other, there are various sources of particulate matter in the environment: industrial facilities, settlements with cars and heating systems and agriculture, where the soil is stirred up. From the Sahara to considerable amounts of dust under certain weather conditions.
Against natural and fine dust very little to do. It is different in the case of soot, caused by human activities. “After all, the total amount of soot in the Alpine region today is lower than at the beginning and middle of the 20th century. Century,“ says Margit Schwikowski, environmental chemist at the Paul-Scherrer-Institute in Villigen (Switzerland). On the basis of carbon isotopes, we know that most of the particles derived from fossil fuels. “So it is very useful to reduce these emissions.”
glaciers in plastic foil packaging? “
WSL Director Konrad Steffen to the thought” is true: “The less soot on the glaciers lands, the better.” Only by rising temperatures, the ice mass be threatened already “considerably”. As a counter-measure, you will be covered sometimes in the summer with a Plan to protect you from the sun’s rays. “Ill-conceived”, the the researchers. “The Plan will be managed with the helicopters up, the CO2 footprint of these actions is enormous.” In addition, the UV light from the sun decomposing the plastic, whereby the micro-plastic is produced from rainfall in the environment. In exceptional cases, such measures were justified, such as when the Mast of a Lift is on the glacier and its Foundation should remain stable. But “in the case of large surfaces, a cover does not make sense”.
there is an Even wider Problem in the Himalayas. Indirectly two billion people from the water of glaciers and the balance between growth on rainfall and melt depend on. On the basis of Ice cores Margit Schwikowski has been demonstrated, together with colleagues in 2011, the Rußeintrag in the second half of the 20th century. Century has increased significantly. “Since 1975, carbon black has contributed about three times more glacier melt than in the pre-industrial era,” says the researcher. Until 1990, they were registered in the samples from the Western flank of Mount Everest, an increasing soot content, and then remained at a high level. “We explain the increasing emissions from South Asia, but were partially offset by the decline in pollutant emissions in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.” The Chinese industry is considered to be particularly dirty, it affects the Rußeintrag there, by the way. Because the Wind blows mostly from the West.
Also, a single, a lot of the soot-generating events are stored in the ice, as a recent study by Chinese scientists shows. They have studied Ice cores from the Northern Tibetan Plateau and noted for the years 1991 and 1992, a three – to four-fold higher Rußeintrag than usual. Her suspicion was confirmed by a Transport model calculation: the cause of the oil Wells in Kuwait that had been set during the Gulf war, 28 years ago in a fire. By the soot in the ice, the effect of heat radiation, two had been to five times higher than usual.
blood snow algae on the glacier, a dye, and accelerate the melt
Schwikowskis studies have shown that the Rußeintrag in the Himalayas fluctuates during the year. Particularly high-he is in Winter and spring. Then he is carried from South Asia and the Middle East in the high mountains. In the summer, the amount is small, because then the particles are washed by the monsoon quickly out of the air. In the Winter seasoned superficial soot is so significant that it contributes about equally to the melting of the glaciers as the climate warming, are reduced, the conclusion of the researcher: The more emissions, the more the glaciers melt could be slowed down.
another effect that has been observed little, this could mitigate The Albedo can also be from algae that live in snow and ice, reduces. They are adapted to life in extreme environments and form red pigments to protect themselves from the UV radiation, such as antioxidant known Astaxanthin. Under favorable conditions, they multiply massively. Then it can come to the phenomenon of “blood snow”. The effect is the same: The surface is darker and the glacier melts.
“The metabolism of algae based on photosynthesis,” says Birgit Sattler of the University of Innsbruck, which explores microbes on the Jamtalferner glacier. Nutrients they received “from the dead cells of other organisms, which are decomposed on the glacier, as well as accumulated rock dust, which contains some phosphorus compounds, you can use”. Higher temperatures favored the growth of algae significantly, says the biologist. More melting water, which introduces additional nutrients, play a role. The result is that the algae proliferate and the glacier color. Add to this that the diving season starts to stop longer and also of this Wärmeffekt, the Bio-Albedo is called.
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melt and above-average temperature rise study: the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush to lose a large part of the glacier
In Greenland, the phenomenon is explored. It showed that the algae can reduce the albedo by up to 13 percent. “In the Alps, the research is still very young,” says Sattler. “Our investigations at the Jamtalferner suggest, however, that the effect achieved here is certainly the same order of magnitude.”