Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Climate Change And Forest Fires Synergistically Drive Widespread Melt Events Of The Greenland Ice Sheet, Kaitlin M. Keegan, Mary R. Albert, Joseph R. Mcconnell, Ian Baker

Dartmouth Scholarship

In July 2012, over 97% of the Greenland Ice Sheet experienced surface melt, the first widespread melt during the era of satellite remote sensing. Analysis of six Greenland shallow firn cores from the dry snow region confirms that the most recent prior widespread melt occurred in 1889. A firn core from the center of the ice sheet demonstrated that exceptionally warm temperatures combined with black carbon sediments from Northern Hemisphere forest fires reduced albedo below a critical threshold in the dry snow region, and caused the melting events in both 1889 and 2012. We use these data to project the …