Spatial variability of snow physical properties across northwestern Greenland

In the late spring and early summer of 2013, researchers on the SAGE (Sunlight Absorption on the Greenland ice sheet Experiment) Traverse, embarked on a 4000 km ground traverse across northwestern Greenland in an attempt to quantify spatial variability of snow chemistry, snow physical properties, and snow reflectance. The field team targeted sites first visited by Carl Benson during his series of traverses from 1952 to 1955 as part of his pioneering work to characterize the Greenland Ice Sheet. This route now represents a rapidly changing and variable area of Greenland, as the route passes through several of the ice sheet facies first delimited by Benson. Along the traverse, the SAGE field team made ground-based albedo measurements using a hand-held spectroradiometer and collected snow physical property samples to determine snow specific surface area (SSA) from shallow, 2m pits. In addition, snow density and stratigraphy were measured. Snow layers in the near-surface and at the previous season's melt layer were targeted for sampling. Here we present preliminary snow physical property results from the upper portion of the snow pits and relate these to surface albedo data collected over the route. Further measurements of snow properties in the 2012 melt layer will be analyzed to assess the potential role of snow chemical (see Dibb et al. for a discussion of chemical analysis) and physical property driven albedo feedbacks could have played in contributing to that event. Route of 2013 SAGE Traverse in northwestern Greenland.