Articles | Volume 11, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2611-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2611-2017
Research article
 | 
17 Nov 2017
Research article |  | 17 Nov 2017

Quantifying bioalbedo: a new physically based model and discussion of empirical methods for characterising biological influence on ice and snow albedo

Joseph M. Cook, Andrew J. Hodson, Alex S. Gardner, Mark Flanner, Andrew J. Tedstone, Christopher Williamson, Tristram D. L. Irvine-Fynn, Johan Nilsson, Robert Bryant, and Martyn Tranter

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Cited articles

Alvarez, E., Nogueira, E., and Lopez-Urrutia, A.: In-vivo single cell fluorescence and the size scaling of phytoplankton chlorophyll content, Appl. Environ. Microbiol., AEM.03317-16, 83, https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.03317-16, 2017.
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Aoki, T., Kuchiki, K., Niwano, M., Kodama, Y., Hosaka, M., and Tanaka, T.: Physically based snow albedo model for calculating broadband albedos and the solar heating pro?le in snowpack for general circulat ion models, J. Geophys. Res., 116, D11114, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010JD015507, 2011.
Aoki, T., Kuchiki, K., Niwano, M., Mtoba, S., Uetake, J., Masuda, K., and Ishimoto, H.: Numerical simulation of spectral albedos of glacier surfaces covered with glacial microbes in northweatern Greenland, AIP Conference Proceedings 1531, 176, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4804735 2013.
Arnold, G. T., Tsay, S.-C., King, M. D., Li, J. Y., and Soulen, P. F.: Airborne spectral measurements of surface-atmosphere anisotropy for arctic sea ice and tundra, Int. J. Remote Sens., 23, 3763–3781, 2002.
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Short summary
Biological growth darkens snow and ice, causing it to melt faster. This is often referred to as bioalbedo. Quantifying bioalbedo has not been achieved because of difficulties in isolating the biological contribution from the optical properties of ice and snow, and from inorganic impurities in field studies. In this paper, we provide a physical model that enables bioalbedo to be quantified from first principles and we use it to guide future field studies.