Kingdom of Frost. Bjørn Vassnes
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atmosphere determines how strong the greenhouse effect is. The greenhouse effect makes the temperature on Earth higher; without it, the planet would be at least 63 degrees Fahrenheit cooler. We can see the consequences of a strong greenhouse effect on Venus, where 96.5 percent of the atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide (CO2) and the surface temperature is 872 degrees Fahrenheit.
The most abundant greenhouse gas on Earth is, in fact, water vapor, but the gases that are considered to be the strongest drivers of the effect are CO2 and methane (CH4). Studies of tiny air pockets left in ice and rock show that the concentration of these gases has fluctuated considerably over the course of Earth’s history. Today, we believe the main source of the greenhouse effect is carbon burning, but this is only part of the truth—and was, at any rate, not the case for the first billions of years. Back then, these gases were emitted from the Earth’s core, through volcanoes and other similar “vents.” And since volcanic activity may have been high in Earth’s earliest phases, the concentration of greenhouse gases was also high. This is probably the reason there was no ice age in the first 1.6 billion years, even though the sun’s radiation was weaker then and Earth therefore “ought” to have been cooler. So the greenhouse effect is nothing new; it has, at times, been far more severe than it is today. Whereas CO2 concentration has just passed 400 ppm (parts per million) and was 280 ppm in pre-industrial times, in previous periods it has been as high as 7,000 ppm. The reason we worry about the greenhouse effect today is its historically rapid increase, and the fact that it already appears to be affecting the climate in ways detrimental to life.
OUR NEIGHBORING PLANETS, Venus and Mars, offer us a good illustration of the significance of the greenhouse effect. On Venus, the greenhouse effect has run riot, causing the planet’s surface to become insanely overheated and making it an absolutely impossible place for living organisms to survive. Mars has gone to the opposite extreme: it has almost no atmosphere—possibly because the planet is too light to retain one—and therefore also has no greenhouse effect. Here, the mean temperature is −76 degrees Fahrenheit, hardly propitious for life.
But back to Earth, which has been unusually fortunate in avoiding these extremes, partly because we are just far enough away from the sun and partly because we have acquired an atmosphere that provides just enough greenhouse effect. It would be more than a billion years before it became cool enough for the water molecules not just to condense and fall as rain, but to build one of nature’s wonders: snow crystals, unique structures consisting of around a hundred quintillion water molecules. One reason why this took so long, even though radiation from the sun was so much weaker than today, is that water vapor is an efficient greenhouse gas. So as long as there was a lot of steam in the atmosphere, Earth was very humid and hot. But as the steam gradually cooled, condensed, and fell as rain, the temperature dropped enough to allow the water to freeze at last. Finally, after a good billion years, the first snow could fall.
Snow is born high up in the atmosphere. It mostly forms in one of two situations: either when humid air comes in from the sea and is pushed upward as it meets a mountain range, such as the Cascades of western North America; or when warm and cold air masses meet. In both cases, the warm, humid air is pushed high up into the atmosphere where it cools; if dust particles that can serve as a nucleus are present, the vapor begins to form snow crystals. This does not automatically happen at the freezing point: snow may also form at higher temperatures. And the opposite is also true, as many drivers know from bitter experience: rainfall may be supercooled, below zero, which causes it to freeze as soon as it hits the ground. In the dialect of Hardanger, western Norway, it’s known as a juklasprett, which translates roughly as “glacial bloom”: you can literally see how the ice, the jøkul or glacier, springs up from the ground, sending cars off the road and making people fall and break their hips.
As we’ve seen in countless illustrations, snowflakes can occur in an infinite number of forms, depending on conditions such as temperature, humidity, and wind—as well as sheer, simple chance. The crystals may look like stars, polygons, discs, pillars, or plates. They may be more or less loose or compact. A common shape in dry conditions is hexagonal. It is reflections from such crystals that can create “sun dogs” or “moon dogs,” bright spots on either side of the sun or moon.
Like other crystals, snow crystals have a tendency to build up, and when they are heavy enough, they start to fall. They often melt before landing or as soon as they come into contact with the ground. But if it’s cold enough, they may settle. And if more snow falls, it can begin to accumulate. The length of time it remains depends on the temperature and how much snow manages to fall. Snow may come and go many times before settling for good. Sometimes not even the summer sun can thaw it all, and “the snows of yesteryear” remain until the next winter, in a much more densely packed form than they had to begin with. This is how glaciers are born.
Snow crystals have many relatives: sleet, or raindrops that freeze partway to the ground; hailstones, which have never been snowflakes but started out as shapeless particles of ice formed around a frozen core in cumulonimbus clouds; graupel, snow pellets that form when supercooled water droplets freeze on falling snowflakes; hoarfrost, the frozen version of dew; and rime or glaze, the coating of ice that results when supercooled fog or rain comes into contact with objects (black ice when it covers roads). Water can take on countless forms when it freezes. These forms are not just beautiful but also useful. I’ve already mentioned the insulating properties of snow. But both snow and ice have several important functions. If they remain, they keep water in place, ensuring that it doesn’t run off at once but is stored either temporarily or permanently as snow, frost, or glacier ice. Sometimes, it may be stored for just a few days or weeks or through the winter. Other times, it can remain there for very long periods, lasting thousands of years, until a warmer climate releases the water once again. These fluctuations in the frozen world, over different timescales, create a dynamic that has shaped not just our landscapes but also life itself.
But when it comes to long-term history and the major fluctuations in the cryosphere, one property of snow in particular is vital: its whiteness. This gives it a thoroughly unusual capacity to reflect sunlight, up to 90 percent of sunlight in the case of new snow. If we take into account the fact that snow can cover up to half the land surface of the northern hemisphere in winter, as well as large expanses of sea ice and glaciers, it goes without saying that the climate effects can be considerable. Indeed, this albedo effect (see “A Closer Look: Albedo”) can trigger self-reinforcing climate processes in both directions: when the albedo diminishes because the sea ice and snow cover are vanishing, the temperature rises because land and sea absorb more of the sun’s heat, which leads to even more melting, and hence more heat absorbed, and so on. The opposite also applies: when more snow comes, the albedo increases, more of the sun’s heat is reflected, and it grows even colder, and so on, in a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism that has triggered an ice age on several occasions.
SNOW AND ICE also affect the climate in other ways, albeit at a more local level. When water freezes in the autumn, it releases large amounts of energy, which has a warming effect on the surrounding area: it feels warmer than it actually “ought” to be. In spring, when snow and ice melt, the opposite occurs. Melting takes a lot of energy, which makes the air grow colder than it would otherwise be. So in both autumn and spring, snow works as a kind of buffer, making the temperature changes happen a bit more slowly than they otherwise would. And snow has even more unusual qualities owing to the special structure of the snow crystals. One of them is that snow, though cold in itself, is one of the best insulators of heat in existence. This is what makes it possible for reindeer to find unfrozen lichen beneath the snow—and what makes snow-free winters a nightmare for reindeer herders, my neighbors during childhood.
A CLOSER LOOK
Albedo—the Effect of Whiteness
One reason why the cryosphere is so important for the climate is its whiteness, albedo in Latin.9 The Latin word is used to describe how much of the sun’s radiation a surface reflects. The reflection depends on the wavelength of the radiation, the angle at which it strikes the surface, and the nature of the surface. How much of the sun’s energy the surface of