Skip to main content

Light-Absorbing Particles in Snow and Ice: A Brief Journey Across Latitudes

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Springer Series in Light Scattering

Abstract

Worldwide, snow and ice can be polluted with impurities also referred as Light-Absorbing Particles (LAPs). In this chapter, we review the different processes occurring at middle latitudes, tropical areas, and polar regions. We show that snow and ice albedo reduction due to LAPs deposition or resurfacing is a global phenomenon with regional characteristics. Later in the chapter, we provide a classification of LAPs based on their optical features. We divided LAPs in non-carbonaceous (mineral dust) and carbonaceous (biogenic particles and cryoconite), and we created a set of radiative transfer simulations for each category. Lastly, we described different observation approaches for studying LAPs impact on snow and ice. We divided these methods in proximal (field spectroscopy) and remote (aerial surveys and satellite data) sensing. We expect that the study of LAPs in snow and ice will grow in the future, and more data and models will be developed in order to describe the hydrological and climatic effect of LAPs in the cryosphere.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Biancamaria Narcisi for providing the image of mineral dust used in Fig. 3, Mirco Bonacorsi for collecting snow algae samples in the Alps and Pierino Bigoni for the image of snow algae used in Fig. 8. Janarjan Bhandari, Swarup China, and Claudio Mazzoleni are acknowledged for the image of Black Carbon used in Fig. 5. We acknowledge Alexander Kokhanovsky for editing this chapter.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to B. Di Mauro .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Di Mauro, B., Garzonio, R., Baccolo, G., Gilardoni, S., Rossini, M., Colombo, R. (2021). Light-Absorbing Particles in Snow and Ice: A Brief Journey Across Latitudes. In: Kokhanovsky, A. (eds) Springer Series in Light Scattering. Springer Series in Light Scattering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87683-8_1

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics