Microbiologists have found that bacteria that traps soot to glaciers will dramatically accelerate their thaw.

(Arwyn Edwards)

Arctic glaciers are already melting fastdue to climate change, but now scientists believe a frightening new microbiological factor will also speed up their thaw.

During the Microbiology Society's Annual Conference in the United Kingdom, Arwyn Edwards, a microbiologistfrom Aberystwyth University, revealed that his research team had found that microbes were darkening ice sheets and accelerating the melt rate of glaciers, an effect unforeseen by climate change models. The microbes were helping cryoconite (glacial silt) stick to the ice, creating little "pock marks" on the surface and making the glaciers less reflective and more apt to absorb sunlight, causing them to melt more precipitously.

"If we recognize ice surfaces as a living landscape we can see that the microbes themselves are able to change the glacial surface," Edwards said in a press release. "It's only recently that we've begun to understand that these cryoconite holes are dynamic, changing in size and shape. ... As the biologically productive areas of glaciers and ice sheets expand due to climate change, these microbial processes can influence their melting more and more. In the long term, this contributes to the loss of glacier habitats, and the unique microbial biodiversity living on them."

Arctic glaciers are typically able to reflect 60 percent of the sunlight. But with microbes gumming up thedust and industrial soot,the glaciers were only able to reflect 20 percent of the sun's rays, according to the team's research.

Ben Edwards, Associate Professor of Earth Sciences at Dickinson College, told weather.com in an email how this process — known as the "Albedo effect" — worked.

"Dark objects absorb heat and lighter colored ones reflect solar radiation," Edwards said. "So ice in glaciers normally reflect much of incoming solar radiation. Dark microbes, dust or even volcanic ash can speed ice melting because the dark materials warm up and then transfer heat to underlying ice — like wearing a dark T-shirt on a sunny day makes you warmer."

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Richard Armstrong, Senior Research Scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told weather.com in an email that the microbiologists will need to map out the extent of the microbes in order to assuage their effects to the glaciers.

"The challenge for those researchers directly involved in such assessments is to determine, in a quantitative fashion, the spacial extent and duration of the presence of these microbes in order to determine their specific input to the accelerated melting that has been observed overall," Armstrong said.

Gavin Schmidt, climate scientist and Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, felt the influence of these Arctic microbes on the ice sheets would be negligible.

"I’m sure the actual research is good, but the impacts of this will be tiny at the global scale," Schmidt told weather.com in an email. "It's certainly true that we have some work to do in improving the change in albedo on ice sheets (as a function of soot/dust deposition, meltponds etc.) in models, but the actual changes in albedo that have been seen are quite small, and the impact of microbes on that change smaller still. For instance, the average albedo of the Greenland ice sheet has decreased a little, but that change is mostly driven by ice crystal changes as the melt area increases with warming. The impact of microbes on this change is not going to be large."

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Pedersen Glacier is photographed from Aialik Bay in Alaska in 1909. (USGS/ U.S. Grant)