🧊 Ice-Albedo Feedback Lab

About this simulation

This is a 3D model of a glacier tongue running from a high, snow-covered accumulation zone down to a low, exposed ablation zone. Every point on the surface tracks its own remaining snow depth and ice thickness, and its color (and reflectivity) responds live to how much bright snow still covers the darker ice and dust underneath — the same ice-albedo feedback that drives real glacier retreat.

How it works

• Albedo at each point blends fresh-snow reflectivity (~0.85) with a dirtier bare-ice value that gets darker as impurity load increases (as low as ~0.10).
• Melt energy at a point = solar intensity × (1 − albedo) × max(temperature, 0)/10 — brighter, cleaner snow absorbs less and melts slower.
• Once local snow depth reaches zero, further melt eats directly into ice thickness, lowering and retreating the glacier surface and darkening it further as impurities concentrate — the feedback loop.
• The white-to-blue equilibrium line marks where snow cover reaches zero; watch it climb uphill as warming continues.
• Meltwater draining off the ice accumulates as global sea level contribution, shown live and by the rising ocean plane.

Controls

• Air temperature — melt only occurs above 0°C; higher temperatures scale melt energy linearly.
• Impurity load — how much dust, soot and algae darken exposed ice; higher values strengthen the feedback loop.
• Solar intensity — simulates seasonal or latitude differences in incoming sunlight.
• ↺ Regrow glacier — resets snow depth, ice thickness and sea level to initial conditions.

Did you know?

Meltwater ponds that form on a glacier's surface have an albedo close to open ocean water (~0.06–0.10) — once enough of them form, they can lower a glacier's overall reflectivity faster than any other single process, which is why this model treats low, flat, melt-prone areas as an extra darkening term.