paragraph1:"Glaciers and ice caps around the world are melting.",
paragraph2:"Glaciers serve as water towers and store freshwater that is essential for drinking water and agriculture. Losing this freshwater to the ocean results in rising sea levels. This glacial retreat is due to increased temperatures, water collecting under glaciers and hastening their movement, alterations in atmospheric circulation, and the deposition of dark aerosols on ice.",
paragraph3:"Dark aerosols absorb heat and can increase melt on glacier surfaces. Black carbon is produced by both industrial burning and from forest fires. Nagorski et al. (2019) determined that black carbon is increasing the radiative forcing of the Juneau Icefield and accelerating the melt.",
paragraph4:"Specific sugars (levoglucosan, mannosan, and galactosan) are only produced by burning vegetation including smoldering grass fires which are often hard to analyze in the past. As coal contains cellulose, coal burning can also produce levoglucosan, mannosan, and galactosan.",
paragraph5:"Here, we collected a series of ~10 m cores across the Juneau Icefield, AK, which encompass some of the most rapidly melting glaciers on the planet, as well as a major contributor to sea level rise. Our goal was to determine if and how wildfire aerosols are affecting the Juneau Icefield.",
paragraph6:"All three sugars were present in quantifiable amounts, demonstrating that wildfires are unequivocally depositing aerosols onto the icefield. Ratios between the sugars can provide information on if hardwoods, softwoods or grasses burned in the fires. The presence of hardwood fires, coupled with satellite data of smoke transport, suggest that fires as far away as East Asia may affect the Juneau Icefield."
paragraph2:"Glaciers serve as water towers that store freshwater that is essential for drinking water and agriculture. When glaciers melt, this freshwater is lost to the ocean, raising sea levels. Glacial retreat is occurring due to increased temperatures, water collecting under glaciers and hastening their movement, alterations in atmospheric circulation, and the deposition of dark aerosols on ice.",
paragraph3:"Dark aerosols absorb heat and can increase melting on glacier surfaces. Black carbon, or soot, is a type of dark aerosol that is produced by both industrial burning of fossil fuels and forest fires. Nagorski et al. (2019) determined that black carbon increases the amount of heat absorbed by the Juneau Icefield and accelerates the melting.",
paragraph4:"The Fire in Ice Project collected a series of ~10-meter snow cores across the Juneau Icefield, AK, which includes some of the most rapidly melting glaciers on the planet and is a major contributor to sea level rise. The goal was to determine if and how wildfire aerosols are affecting the Juneau Icefield by studying material preserved in the core layers.",
paragraph5:"Scientists analyzed the core for specific sugars (levoglucosan, mannosan, and galactosan) that are only produced by burning vegetation. These sugars are transported in smoke plumes alongside dark aerosols and are also deposited on the icefield. All three sugars were present in quantifiable amounts, demonstrating that wildfires are unequivocally depositing aerosols onto the icefield. Ratios between the sugars can provide information on the vegetation type—hardwoods or softwoods—that burned in the fires. The presence of hardwood fires, coupled with satellite data of smoke transport, suggests that fires as far away as East Asia may affect the Juneau Icefield."
