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SUMMARY:EESS talk on "The Great Melting: How Small Living Things Affect Gl
 obal Processes"
DTSTART:20181127T121500
DTEND:20181127T131500
DTSTAMP:20260506T080504Z
UID:8d727f3c790c6e5c9dbb3eb4d0a9dfacbe236fa49aca45ec00e5067c
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr Liane Benning\, professor in Interface Geochemistry\, Free 
 University Berlin and German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) Potsdam
 \; DE\nResearch we do focusses on biogeochemical element cycling in in 
 Earth surface environments with special emphasis on mineral-fluid-microbe
  interface reactions. We combine experimental and field observations and a
 ssess mineral formation or breakdown reactions via in situ and time resolv
 ed electron and X-ray approaches or assess the role of ‘life' in extreme
  environments using various ‘omic’ techniques.\nAbstract:\nAnthropogen
 ically enhanced melting of snow and ice in polar regions and the associate
 d sea level rise are controlled by changes in albedo. On land and on the G
 reenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) in particular\, such changes are primarily a con
 sequence of increased delivery of light absorbing impurities (LAI) as they
  accelerate melting. So far only wind delivered industrially produced or w
 ild fire derived black carbon (soot) or mineral dust are considered in glo
 bal climate models. We recently demonstrated the importance and role of pi
 gmented snow and ice algae in changing albedo in the Arctic [1\,2] and are
  now working on a multidisciplinary project to isolate the microbial contr
 ibution (bio-albedo) from the other albedo-affecting impurities. I will in
 troduce our results about diversity\, function and metabolic activity of s
 now and ice algae and their link to geochemical variability from a Pan Arc
 tic study\, and contrast these with recent results from the GrIS where we 
 quantify both biological and non-biological LAI particulates and show that
  the close interactions between microbes\, soot and minerals in highly dyn
 amic snow-ice transition zones play the crucial role in enhancing melting.
  Finally\, I will show how we upscale the ground based findings through sa
 tellite data and ice sheet wide modelling. As climate warms\, the biologic
 ally driven processes will increasingly contribute to the darkening of the
  GrIS\, and the subsequent acceleration of the melting of the GrIS ice mas
 ses\, yet these separate effects are currently not included in predictive 
 global numerical models. With our work and we aim to change this over the 
 next few years so that we can better understand how water-mineral-microbe 
 interface reactions at the molecular scale affect such large scale process
 es.\n 
LOCATION:GR A3 32 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==GR%20A3%2032
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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