Publication Abstracts

Venkatesan et al. 2025, submitted

Venkatesan, V., N.Y. Kiang, A.L. Shields, L.E. Sohl, L.F. Coelho, and A.H. Lobo, 2025: Snow microalgae effects on surface albedo: Feedbacks to Slushball Earth climatology. Planet. Sci. J., submitted.

The Slushball Earth refers to an hypothesis of the presence of open equatorial oceans during theNeoproterozoic global glaciation; however, the mechanisms that stabilize partially ice-covered climates remain poorly understood. One important but neglected process is the biological darkening of ice by the presence of microorganisms in and on top of snow and ice, which can reduce surface albedo. Most coupled atmosphere-land-ocean models treat surface snow/ice albedo as abiotic. In this work, we introduce a microbial albedo parameterization into the ROCKE-3D global climate model, and quantify its impacts on the climates of Slushball Earth analogs, partially glaciated climates with equatorial open oceans. Microbial darkening increased the global mean surface temperature by 12.5 K. The reduced snow and ice extent and resultant surface albedo also lead to changes in atmospheric features, including a more intense hydrological cycle, with increases in precipitation and evaporation, vertically integrated cloud water, and surface downwelling longwave radiation, along with weakened near-surface winds and flattened surface meridional temperature gradients. This work implements a microalgae-albedo scheme that enables biological darkening of snow in the ROCKE-3D model, which can be varied for diverse cryosphere-climate studies of Snowball Earth and icy exoplanets.

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BibTeX Citation

@unpublished{ve03100n,
  author={Venkatesan, V. and Kiang, N. Y. and Shields, A. L. and Sohl, L. E. and Coelho, L. F. and Lobo, A. H.},
  title={Snow microalgae effects on surface albedo: Feedbacks to Slushball Earth climatology},
  year={2025},
  journal={Planetary Science Journal},
  note={Manuscript submitted for publication}
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - UNPB
ID  - ve03100n
AU  - Venkatesan, V.
AU  - Kiang, N. Y.
AU  - Shields, A. L.
AU  - Sohl, L. E.
AU  - Coelho, L. F.
AU  - Lobo, A. H.
PY  - 2025
TI  - Snow microalgae effects on surface albedo: Feedbacks to Slushball Earth climatology
JA  - Planet. Sci. J.
JO  - Planetary Science Journal
ER  -

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