Springtime warming and reduced snow cover from carbonaceous particles

Carbonaceous particles can influence snow coverage by warming the atmosphere, reducing surface-incident solar energy (dimming), and reducing snow reflectance after deposition (darkening). We apply a range of models and observations to explore impacts of these processes on springtime climate, drawing several conclusions: 1) Nearly all atmospheric particles (those with visible-band single-scatter albedo less than 0.999), including all mixtures of black carbon (BC) and organic matter (OM), increase net solar heating of the atmosphere-snow column. 2) Darkening caused by small concentrations of particles within snow exceeds the loss of absorbed energy from concurrent dimming, thus increasing solar heating of snowpack as well (positive net surface forcing).

Over global snow, we estimate 6-fold greater surface forcing from darkening than dimming, caused by BC+OM. 3) Equilibrium climate experiments suggest that fossil fuel and biofuel emissions of BC+OM induce 95% as much springtime snow cover loss over Eurasia as anthropogenic carbon dioxide, a consequence of strong snow-albedo feedback and large BC+OM emissions from Asia. 4) Of 22 climate models contributing to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, 21 underpredict the rapid warming (0.64?C decade??) observed over springtime Eurasia since 1979.