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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Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision
AR by Joseph Cook on behalf of the Authors (15 Aug 2017)  Author's response    Manuscript
ED: Reconsider after major revisions (23 Aug 2017) by Marco Tedesco
ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (11 Sep 2017) by Marco Tedesco
RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (25 Sep 2017)
ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (12 Oct 2017) by Marco Tedesco
AR by Joseph Cook on behalf of the Authors (13 Oct 2017)  Author's response    Manuscript
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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.