Microplastics’ Hidden Contribution to Snow Melting

Black carbon particles, produced by combustion of gasoline, diesel fuel, coal, and other organics, have been found to be the second-largest driver of climate warming, after carbon dioxide (CO2), since the Industrial Revolution. Much of black carbon’s role in this warming results from the fact that it contributes to the melting of snow and ice and thus to darkening of Earth’s surface, reducing the amount of sunlight the planet reflects and increasing the amount it absorbs.  Today the mass of MP particles in the environment is very likely more than that of BC. Dubaish and Liebezeit [2013] found 5 times more MP particles than visible BC particles in a microscope slide count of particles in water samples from Jade Bay along the northwestern coast of Germany. This is the only study to date that has reported simultaneous measurements of MP and BC particles, and it did not address the coexistence of MPs and BC in snow. - EOS