"The remaining snowbanks". A lot have melted, along with the also reflective ice. The marginal increase in how reflecting they are just doesn't compare with how much heat absorbing are areas without snow or ice, there are in the order of thousands of millions of km2 less sea ice than in the past years (https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/) and ocean water absorbs a lot of heat.
Snow in the Northern Hemisphere is likely to be cleaner by the end of this century — an effect that will partially offset the effects of global warming1.
Global warming has reduced snowfall and accelerated snowmelt in mountainous regions, threatening the supply of fresh water for two billion people worldwide. Snow melts even faster if it is covered with sooty particles of black carbon, which are produced by the burning of wood and fossil fuels.
Dalei Hao at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, and his colleagues used simulations to assess how much soot will land on snow in the next several decades. They project a reduction in black-carbon pollution in snow-covered regions across the Northern Hemisphere between 2015 and the end of the twenty-first century.
Even if global carbon emissions continue to rise for the next half-century, the amount of solar radiation the snow absorbs because of soot and dust pollution will be 62.3% less by 2100 than when the snow was dirtier. The whitening of the snowpack is expected to slow its loss and increase the availability of fresh water, the scientists say.
It is difficult, but having a clearer picture with more variables accounted for doesn’t hurt, unless you take modern models and try to run them with less accurate, or outright missing older data (which climate change deniers frequently do as a “gotcha” to scientists).
As usual it's complicated, and it depends on which study you pick, and which model and parameters the researchers used. This study suggests that more anthropogenic sulfate aerosols in the air (usually from burning coal and other fossil fuels) could cool Artic summers from low clouds but warm Artic winters due to high clouds:
Headline is kind of misleading -- it will offset climate change's effects _on snow_ because it's more reflective. It won't effect climate change in general.
Presumably it will if the snow reflects more light and melts less as a result - that will increase the planet's albedo and hence slow the effect of climate change relative to what it would have been with previous rates of soot deposition.
Yes, but the effect is dwarfed by greenhouse gas emissions. The effect of this is mostly going to be local. The big reflectors are greenland, the arctic and antarctic and those already have a very high albedo.
Sounds like a joke but it makes sense, but it also says nothing because most places outside the city will have pristine snow than in the city as always
Another thing that is incredibly bright in winter is a wet road that had been salted. If you have the misfortune of driving towards a setting sun in winter on a salted wet road it can be incredibly bright. Blinding.
I wish they would do something relatively simple like reducing the contrails created by jet aircraft. High clouds hold in heat and reducing the number of high clouds would increase radiational cooling.
Readit News
Global warming has reduced snowfall and accelerated snowmelt in mountainous regions, threatening the supply of fresh water for two billion people worldwide. Snow melts even faster if it is covered with sooty particles of black carbon, which are produced by the burning of wood and fossil fuels.
Dalei Hao at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, and his colleagues used simulations to assess how much soot will land on snow in the next several decades. They project a reduction in black-carbon pollution in snow-covered regions across the Northern Hemisphere between 2015 and the end of the twenty-first century.
Even if global carbon emissions continue to rise for the next half-century, the amount of solar radiation the snow absorbs because of soot and dust pollution will be 62.3% less by 2100 than when the snow was dirtier. The whitening of the snowpack is expected to slow its loss and increase the availability of fresh water, the scientists say.
There are just so many variables and effects to consider - modelling this behaviour to any level of precision seems very hard.
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So the effect of cleaner air is more warming, but less snow melt? Probably not.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.7665...