Mount Rainier’s snowpack is a critical source of fresh water for over five major river systems in the US Pacific Northwest. While it is well documented that increased levels of Black Carbon (BC) accelerate snowpack melt rate by lowering its albedo, few studies pertaining to BC concentrations in Mount Rainier snow have been published to date. Here, we aim to construct a baseline of BC concentrations on Mt. Rainier using the Light Absorption Heating Method (LAHM), based on field-collected samples that span the 2020 and 2021 wildfire seasons. We find elevated BC concentrations in summer 2021, compared to the previous year, consistent with elevated occurrences of regional wildfires that year. We present back-trajectories computed from the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model, in an effort to pinpoint effects of specific wildfire episodes. We also present evidence, based on scanning electron microscope elemental analysis, that snow samples contain ferrite and zirconium, which are components of flame retardants used regionally to suppress wildfires.

Impact of wildfires on the black carbon concentration in Mount Rainier's snowpack

ACS Spring 2022

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