Abstract
The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) has been a topic of extensive scientific research over the past several decades due to the exponential increase in its melting. The relationship between air pollution and GrIS melting was reviewed based on local emission of air pollutants, atmospheric circulation, natural and anthropogenic forcing, and ground/satellite-based measurements. Among multiple factors responsible for accelerated ice melting, greenhouse gases have long been thought to be the main reason. However, it is suggested that air pollution is another piece of the puzzle for this phenomenon. In particular, black carbon (BC) and other aerosols emitted anthropogenically interact with clouds and ice in the Arctic hemisphere to shorten the cloud lifespan and to change the surface albedo through alteration of the radiative balance. The presence of pollution plumes lowers the extent of super cooling required for cloud freezing by about 4 °C, while shortening the lifespan of clouds (e.g., by altering their free-energy barrier to prompt precipitation). Since the low-level clouds in the Arctic are 2–8 times more sensitive to air pollution (in terms of the radiative/microphysical properties) than other regions in the world, the melting of the GrIS can be stimulated by the reduction in cloud stability induced by air pollution. In this study, we reviewed the possible impact of air pollution on the melting of the GrIS in relation to meteorological processes and emission of light-absorbing impurities. Long-term variation of ground-based AERONET aerosol optical depth in Greenland supports the potential significance of local emission and long-range transport of air pollutants from Arctic circle and continents in the northern hemisphere in rapid GrIS melting trend.
Highlights
The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is about the same size as the state of Alaska in the USA and can result in the rise of the global sea level by more than 7.2 m upon complete melting [1]
The role of air pollution is proposed as one of the potential driving components in addition to all of those identified to date [4,5,6]
Mass of the GrISlifespans induced by air pollution may result in abnormal regulation of the Arctic surface temperature that can Thethe radiative properties of mixed-phase clouds in thecoverage, Arctic region play a cru accelerate ice-melting rate depending upon the season, sea-ice and cloud optical depth [5,7,12]
Summary
The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is about the same size as the state of Alaska in the USA and can result in the rise of the global sea level by more than 7.2 m upon complete melting [1]. If no precipitation occurs during the transport of air pollutants to the Arctic region, the net aerosol-cloud interaction parameter (ACInet ). In cases where precipitation occurs during the transport of pollutants to the Arctic region, aerosol particles may be scavenged via wet deposition only to leave carbon monoxide (CO) behind (utilized as a passive tracer). In such cases, the ACInet value should remain zero even if the aerosols under consideration would have previously acted as effective cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) [10]. [7,8,11]
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