Unraveling the optical shape of snow.
Journal
Nature communications
ISSN: 2041-1723
Titre abrégé: Nat Commun
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101528555
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
07 Jul 2023
07 Jul 2023
Historique:
received:
28
02
2023
accepted:
21
06
2023
medline:
10
7
2023
pubmed:
8
7
2023
entrez:
7
7
2023
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
The reflection of sunlight off the snow is a major driver of the Earth's climate. This reflection is governed by the shape and arrangement of ice crystals at the micrometer scale, called snow microstructure. However, snow optical models overlook the complexity of this microstructure by using simple shapes, and mainly spheres. The use of these various shapes leads to large uncertainties in climate modeling, which could reach 1.2 K in global air temperature. Here, we accurately simulate light propagation in three-dimensional images of natural snow at the micrometer scale, revealing the optical shape of snow. This optical shape is neither spherical nor close to the other idealized shapes commonly used in models. Instead, it more closely approximates a collection of convex particles without symmetry. Besides providing a more realistic representation of snow in the visible and near-infrared spectral region (400 to 1400 nm), this breakthrough can be directly used in climate models, reducing by 3 the uncertainties in global air temperature related to the optical shape of snow.
Identifiants
pubmed: 37419915
doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-39671-3
pii: 10.1038/s41467-023-39671-3
pmc: PMC10329009
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
3955Subventions
Organisme : Agence Nationale de la Recherche (French National Research Agency)
ID : MiMESis-3D (grant no. ANR-19-CE01-0009)
Organisme : EC | EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation H2020 | H2020 Priority Excellent Science | H2020 European Research Council (H2020 Excellent Science - European Research Council)
ID : IVORI (grant no. 949516)
Informations de copyright
© 2023. The Author(s).
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