Home▸Cryosphere & Polar Ice▸Ice-Albedo Feedback Lab

🧊 Ice-Albedo Feedback Lab

A 3D glacier tongue where melting exposes darker ice, darker ice absorbs more sun, and faster melting exposes still more dark ice — watch the ice-albedo feedback loop drive an equilibrium line uphill and sea level up.

Cryosphere & Polar Ice3DAdvanced60 FPS

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Each point on the glacier tracks its own snow depth, ice thickness and albedo. Melt energy depends on reflectivity, not just temperature — so darker, dust-loaded ice runs away with melting while clean snow resists it.

🎮 How to Use

Raise the air temperature above 0°C to start melting, increase impurity load to strengthen the feedback, and adjust solar intensity to see how insolation and darkening interact. Watch sea level contribution climb.

💡 Did You Know?

Meltwater ponds on glacier surfaces reflect only about as much sunlight as open ocean — around 8% — making them one of the fastest ways a glacier's overall reflectivity collapses once melting begins.

⚙ Under the hood

glaciersice-albedoclimate-feedbackmeltingsea-levelequilibriumThree.js

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install