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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Atmospheric Science
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2024.1348082
This article is part of the Research Topic Atmosphere – Cryosphere Interaction in the Arctic, at High Latitudes and Mountains with Focus on Transport, Deposition and Effects of Dust, Black Carbon, and other Aerosols - Volume II View all articles

Light-Absorbing Capacity of Volcanic Dust from Iceland and Chile

Provisionally accepted
Taru F. Koivusalo Taru F. Koivusalo 1,2,3*Pavla Dagsson-Waldhauserova Pavla Dagsson-Waldhauserova 2,3Maria Gritsevich Maria Gritsevich 4,5,6Jouni I. Peltoniemi Jouni I. Peltoniemi 5
  • 1 Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
  • 2 Agricultural University of Iceland, Faculty of Environmental and Forest Sciences, Reykjavik, Iceland
  • 3 Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Department of Water Resources and Environmental Modeling, Prague, Czechia
  • 4 Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland
  • 5 Finnish Geospatial Research Institute FGI of the National Land Survey of Finland, Espoo, Finland
  • 6 Institute of Physics and Technology, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    It is increasingly recognized that light-absorbing impurities (LAI) deposited on snow and ice affect their albedo and facilitate melting processes leading to various feedback loops, such as the ice albedo feedback mechanism. Black carbon (BC) is often considered the most important LAI, but some areas can be more impacted by high dust emissions. Iceland is one of the most important high latitude sources for the Arctic due to high emissions and the volcanic nature of the dust. We studied optical properties of volcanic dust from Iceland and Chile to understand how it interacts with the Sun's radiation and affects areas of deposition as LAI. Optical properties of dust samples were measured at the laboratory of the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI) using the latest setup of the FGI's goniospectrometer. We found that, depending on the particle size, the albedo of dry volcanic dust on the visible spectrum is as low as 0.03, similar to that of BC, and the albedo decreases with increasing particle size. Wet dust reduces its albedo by 66 % compared to dry sample. This supports the comparability of their albedo reducing effects to BC as LAIs, and highlights their significant role in albedo reduction of snow and ice areas. The potential use of the results from our measurements is diverse, including their use as a ground truth reference for Earth Observation and remote sensing studies, estimating climate change over time, as well as measuring other ecological effects caused by changes in atmospheric composition or land cover.

    Keywords: light-absorbing impurities, Dust, Volcanic sand, albedo, Snow, Climate Change, cryosphere, Optical properties

    Received: 01 Dec 2023; Accepted: 25 Jun 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Koivusalo, Dagsson-Waldhauserova, Gritsevich and Peltoniemi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Taru F. Koivusalo, Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.