| | Only, exactly what we (liberals) expected.
<<Slate Exclusive: Why Greenland’s “Dark Snow” Should Worry You
By Eric Holthaus
 Isn’t ice supposed to be white?Photo by Jason Box
Jason Box knows ice. That’s why what’s happened this year concerns him so much.
Box just returned from a trip to Greenland. Right now, the ice there is … black:
 Dark ice is helping Greenland’s glaciers retreat.Photo by Jason Box
 Crevasses criss-cross the Greenland ice sheet, allowing melt water to descend deep beneath the ice.Photo by Jason Box
 This year, Greenland’s ice was the darkest it’s ever been.Photo by Jason Box
 Box and his team are trying to discover what made this year’s melt season so unusual.Photo by Jason Box
 Box marks his study sites, appropriately, with black flags.Photo by Jason Box
 Box’s ‘Dark Snow’ project is the first scientific expedition to Greenland to be crowdfunded.Photo by Jason Box
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The ice in Greenland this year isn’t just a little dark—it’s record-setting dark. Box says he’s never seen anything like it. I spoke to Box by phone earlier this month, just days after he returned from his summer field research campaign.
“I was just stunned, really,” Box told me.
The photos he took this summer in Greenland are frightening. But their implications are even more so. Just like black cars are hotter to the touch than white ones on sunny summer days, dark ice melts much more quickly.
As a member of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Box travels to Greenland from his home in Copenhagen to track down the source of the soot that’s speeding up the glaciers’ disappearance. He aptly calls his crowdfunded scientific survey Dark Snow.
 This year was another above-average melt season in Greenland.Courtesy of The National Snow and Ice Data Center
There are several potential explanations for what’s going on here. The most likely is that some combination of increasingly infrequent summer snowstorms, wind-blown dust, microbial activity, and forest fire soot led to this year’s exceptionally dark ice. A more ominous possibility is that what we’re seeing is the start of a cascading feedback loop tied to global warming. Box mentions this summer’s mysterious Siberian holes and offshore methane bubbles as evidence that the Arctic can quickly change in unpredictable ways.
This year, Greenland’s ice sheet was the darkest Box (or anyone else) has ever measured. Box gives the stunning stats: “In 2014 the ice sheet is precisely 5.6 percent darker, producing an additional absorption of energy equivalent with roughly twice the US annual electricity consumption.”
Perhaps coincidentally, 2014 will also be the year with the highest number of forest fires ever measured in Arctic.
Box ran these numbers exclusively for Slate, and what he found shocked him. Since comprehensive satellite measurements began in 2000, never before have Arctic wildfires been as powerful as this year. In fact, over the last two or three years, Box calculated that Arctic fires have been burning at a rate that’s double that of just a decade ago. Box felt this finding was so important that he didn’t want to wait for peer review, and instead decided to publish first on Slate. He’s planning on submitting these and other recent findings to a formal scientific journal later this year.
 Arctic and sub-Arctic fires were more powerful in 2014 than ever recorded before.Photo by Jason Box/NASA
Box’s findings are in line with recent research that shows the Arctic is in the midst of dramatic change.
A recent study has found that, as the Arctic warms, forests there are turning to flame at rates unprecedented in the last 10,000 years. This year, those fires produced volumes of smoke and soot that Box says drifted over to Greenland.
In total, more than 3.3 million hectares burned in Canada’s Northwest Territories alone this year—nearly 9 times the long term average—resulting in a charred area bigger than the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts combined. That figure includes the massive Birch Creek Complex, which could end up being the biggest wildfire in modern Canadian history. In July, it spread a smoke plume all the way to Portugal.
In an interview with Canada’s National Post earlier this year, NASA scientist Douglas Morton said, “It’s a major event in the life of the earth system to have a huge set of fires like what you are seeing in Western Canada.”
Box says the real challenge is to rank what fraction of the soot he finds on the Greenland ice is from forest fires, and what is from other sources, like factories. Box says the decline of snow cover in other parts of the Arctic (like Canada) is also exposing more dirt to the air, which can then be more easily transported by the wind. Regardless of their ultimate darkening effect on Greenland, this year’s vast Arctic fires have become a major new source of greenhouse gas emissions from the thawing Arctic. Last year, NASA scientists found “amazing” levels of carbon dioxide and methane emanating from Alaskan permafrost.
Earlier this year, Box made headlines for a strongly worded statement along these lines:
If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we're f'd.
— Jason Box (@climate_ice) July 29, 2014
That tweet landed Box in a bit of hot water with his department, which he said now has to approve his media appearances. Still, Box’s sentiment is inspiring millions. His “f’d” quote is serving as the centerpiece of a massive petition (with nearly 2 million signatures at last count) that the activist organization Avaaz will deliver to “national, local, and international leaders” at this month’s global warming rally in New York City on Sept. 21.
Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.
Eric Holthaus is a meteorologist who writes about weather and climate for Slate’s Future Tense. Follow him on Twitter.
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Jamelle Bouie
Disturbing Racial Bias Research Wins Psychologist a MacArthur Fellowship
Bad Astronomy Sept. 17 2014 7:30 AM
Fantastic and Rare Picture of a Circular Rainbow
Phil Plait
Fantastic and Rare Picture of a Circular Rainbow
Medical Examiner Sept. 16 2014 11:46 PM
Here’s What to Do if You Get a Bug in Your Ear
Annie Stoltie
Here’s What to Do if You Get a Bug in Your Ear
Science Sept. 16 2014 4:09 PM
Creativity, Conspiracy Theories, and Delusions Have One Thing in Common: Apophenia
Katy Waldman
Creativity, Conspiracy Theories, and Delusions Have One Thing in Common: Apophenia
Science Sept. 16 2014 1:39 PM
A Chinese Woman is Living With No Cerebellum in Her Brain. How Is That Possible?
Paca Thomas and Jeffrey Bloomer
A Chinese Woman is Living With No Cerebellum in Her Brain. How Is That Possible?
Bad Astronomy Sept. 16 2014 7:30 AM
A Billion Tatooines
Phil Plait
Bad Astronomy Sept. 15 2014 11:00 AM
The Comet and the Cosmic Beehive (Photo)
Phil Plait
Bad Astronomy Sept. 15 2014 7:30 AM
Those Frigid Cold Snaps and Lingering Weather Patterns Have Now Been Linked to Global Warming
Phil Plait
New Scientist Sept. 14 2014 8:38 AM
Scientific Misconduct Should Be a Crime
Rachel Nuwer
Bad Astronomy Sept. 14 2014 8:00 AM
Because Why Not: A Volcano Tornado (Video)
Phil Plait
Bad Astronomy Sept. 13 2014 8:00 AM
It’s Been 15 Years Since We Lost the Moon and Moonbase Alpha
Phil Plait
Science Sept. 12 2014 11:26 AM
Why Identical Twins Aren’t Really Identical
Cailin O’Connor
Bad Astronomy Sept. 12 2014 7:30 AM
Rosetta’s Comet Wakes Up and Starts Jetting
Phil Plait
Science Sept. 11 2014 1:29 PM
Not So Fast: Did DNA Evidence Really Identify Jack the Ripper?
Ted Scheinman
Science Sept. 11 2014 12:27 PM
The EPA Wants to Define Waters Scientifically. Farmers Are Freaked Out.
Boer Deng
Sports
Sports Nut Sept. 17 2014 3:51 PM
How Big of a Jerk Is NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell?
Jeremy Stahl
Sports Nut
Sept. 17 2014 3:51 PM NFL Jerk Watch: Roger GoodellHow much should you loathe the pro football commissioner?Jeremy Stahl
Sports Nut Sept. 15 2014 9:05 PM
Roger Goodell and the NFL Thought They Had the Press Under Control. Not Any More.
Stefan Fatsis
Roger Goodell and the NFL Thought They Had the Press Under Control. Not Any More.
Sports Nut Sept. 15 2014 8:41 PM
Adrian Peterson Doesn’t Even Deserve to Be on Your Fantasy Team. You Should Release Him.
A.J. McCarthy
Adrian Peterson Doesn’t Even Deserve to Be on Your Fantasy Team. You Should Release Him.
Sports Nut Sept. 15 2014 5:37 PM
What Stephen Colbert Is to Dumb Politicians, PFTCommenter Is to the Dumb NFL
Ben Mathis-Lilley
What Stephen Colbert Is to Dumb Politicians, PFTCommenter Is to the Dumb NFL
Sports Nut Sept. 12 2014 4:36 PM
Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh Exemplify the NFL’s Domestic Violence Hypocrisy
Jeremy Stahl
Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh Exemplify the NFL’s Domestic Violence Hypocrisy
Sports Nut Sept. 11 2014 7:29 PM
What Happens When an NFL Player Is Accused of Beating Up His Wife and There’s No Video
Josh Levin
What Happens When an NFL Player Is Accused of Beating Up His Wife and There’s No Video
Sports Nut Sept. 10 2014 6:36 PM
An AP Report Is Not Enough—We Need Video Proof That an NFL Executive Watched the Ray Rice Video
Josh Levin
An AP Report Is Not Enough—We Need Video Proof That an NFL Executive Watched the Ray Rice Video
Sports Nut Sept. 9 2014 9:24 PM
It's Not Just the Hawks. Other Atlanta Sports Teams Seem to Prefer Their White Fans, Too.
Robert Weintraub
Sports Nut Sept. 9 2014 12:15 PM
Which Professional Athlete Earned the Most Frequent-Flyer Miles in His Career?
Ben Blatt
Sports Nut Sept. 5 2014 3:02 PM
Teenage Mutant Ninja Bortles, and 2014’s Other Most Popular Fantasy Football Team Names
Ben Blatt
Sports Nut Sept. 4 2014 2:34 PM
If Dan Snyder Gets Public Money to Build a New Stadium, It’s Time to Shut Down Pro Sports
Josh Levin and Jeremy Stahl
Sports Nut Sept. 4 2014 12:36 PM
Science Explains Why Female Tennis Players Can Serve As Fast As Men
Aaron Gordon
Sports Nut Sept. 3 2014 4:37 PM
How 1994's Pass-Friendly Rule Changes Saved a Moribund League and Created the Modern NFL
Kevin Craft
Sports Nut Aug. 28 2014 4:29 PM
It’s Time for the NCAA to End Its Pointless Punishment of the Penn State Football Program
Chris Laskowski
Sports Nut Aug. 28 2014 3:27 PM
There’s Finally a College Football Playoff This Year. Here’s How It Will Work. (Video.)
Andrew Bouvé and Josh Levin
Sports Nut Aug. 26 2014 11:54 PM
I Was the Worst High School Quarterback Ever
Josh Keefe
Sports Nut Aug. 26 2014 5:59 PM
Why Did Michigan Schedule a Rematch of the Most Embarrassing Loss in College Football History?
Ben Mathis-Lilley
Slate
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