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Dust dominates high-altitude snow darkening and melt over high-mountain Asia

Nature Climate Change volume 10, pages 1045–1051 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Westerly driven, long-range transportation of dust particles in elevated aerosol layers (EALs) is a persistent phenomenon during spring and summer over the Indian subcontinent. During the snow accumulation season, EALs transport substantial amounts of dust to the snow-covered slopes of high-mountain Asia (HMA). Here we use multiple satellite-based estimates to demonstrate a robust physical association between the EALs and dust-induced snow darkening over HMA. Results from a fully coupled atmosphere–chemistry–snow model support these observations, revealing across HMA a signature of increasing dust-induced snow darkening with surface elevation that peaks near 4,500 m. Moreover, the influence of dust on snow darkening is greater than that of black carbon above 4,000 m. Our findings suggest a discernible role of dust in the observed spatial heterogeneity of snowmelt and snowline trends over HMA and highlight an increasing contribution of dust to snowmelt as the snowline rises with warming.

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Fig. 1: Climatological spatial correlation between EALs and LAP-induced snow albedo darkening over HMA.
Fig. 2: Comparable elevational signature of EALs and ∆α values are observed over HMA.
Fig. 3: Association between dust in EALs and LAP-induced snow albedo reduction over the HMA ranges.
Fig. 4: Simulated elevational dependence of the radiative impact of dust and BC on snow albedo over HMA.
Fig. 5: Simulated time–elevation variability in dust-induced snowmelt over western HMA for December 2013–August 2014.

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Data availability

MODIS data are available from https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/dataprod/. The CALLIPSO dataset used in this study can be downloaded from http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/. The AURA-OMI dataset used in this study can be downloaded from https://omisips1.omisips.eosdis.nasa.gov/. The MERRA-2 reanalysis data used in this study can be downloaded from http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/daac-bin/FTPSubset2.pl. All processed data used in this study are archived at https://portal.nersc.gov/project/m1660/yang560/hma_dust/

Code availability

WRF-Chem is a community model freely available from https://github.com/wrf-model/WRF/releases. The WRF-Chem script modifications used in this study are archived at https://portal.nersc.gov/project/m1660/yang560/hma_dust/. Fig. 1a,b was prepared using ARC-GIS software. All other figures were prepared using MATLAB software. Code for data analysis and figure creation can be obtained from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This research was primarily supported by the NASA High Mountain Asia Project. NASA Applied Sciences 2017 GEO Award 80NSSC18K0427 supported part of this work. C.S. thanks M. Alaa for his inputs and help with ARC-GIS for plotting Fig. 1a and B. C.S. is also partially supported by the New Faculty Initiation Grant project number CE/20-21/065/NFIG/008961 from IIT Madras. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is operated for DOE by Battelle Memorial Institute under contract DE-AC06-76RLO 1830. Part of this work was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under contract with NASA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

    Chandan Sarangi, Yun Qian, L. Ruby Leung & Duli Chand

  2. Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India

    Chandan Sarangi

  3. Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Karl Rittger

  4. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, La Cañada Flintridge, CA, USA

    Kat J. Bormann

  5. JIFRESSE, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Thomas H. Painter

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Contributions

C.S. and Y.Q. conceived the study. C.S. did the analysis and wrote the initial manuscript under the mentorship of Y.Q. Satellite retrieval of MODSCAG and MODRFFS products were provided by K.R., K.J.B. and T.H.P. The CALIPSO data were provided by D.C. All authors provided inputs during manuscript preparation and revision.

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Correspondence to Chandan Sarangi or Yun Qian.

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Sarangi, C., Qian, Y., Rittger, K. et al. Dust dominates high-altitude snow darkening and melt over high-mountain Asia. Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 1045–1051 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00909-3

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