Snowbanks are set to get whiter – offsetting climate change's effects

"The remaining snowbanks". A lot have melted, along with the also reflective ice. The marginal increase in how reflecting they are just doesn't compare with how much heat absorbing are areas without snow or ice, there are in the order of thousands of millions of km2 less sea ice than in the past years (https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/) and ocean water absorbs a lot of heat.

Snow in the Northern Hemisphere is likely to be cleaner by the end of this century — an effect that will partially offset the effects of global warming1.

Global warming has reduced snowfall and accelerated snowmelt in mountainous regions, threatening the supply of fresh water for two billion people worldwide. Snow melts even faster if it is covered with sooty particles of black carbon, which are produced by the burning of wood and fossil fuels.

Dalei Hao at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, and his colleagues used simulations to assess how much soot will land on snow in the next several decades. They project a reduction in black-carbon pollution in snow-covered regions across the Northern Hemisphere between 2015 and the end of the twenty-first century.

Even if global carbon emissions continue to rise for the next half-century, the amount of solar radiation the snow absorbs because of soot and dust pollution will be 62.3% less by 2100 than when the snow was dirtier. The whitening of the snowpack is expected to slow its loss and increase the availability of fresh water, the scientists say.

Meanwhile (apparently) 'removing aerosols induces a global mean surface heating of 0.5–1.1°C.' https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201...

So the effect of cleaner air is more warming, but less snow melt? Probably not.

Headline is kind of misleading -- it will offset climate change's effects _on snow_ because it's more reflective. It won't effect climate change in general.

I was just saying in another thread how the big journals are click-baiting tabloids...

Sounds like a joke but it makes sense, but it also says nothing because most places outside the city will have pristine snow than in the city as always

Another thing that is incredibly bright in winter is a wet road that had been salted. If you have the misfortune of driving towards a setting sun in winter on a salted wet road it can be incredibly bright. Blinding.

I wish they would do something relatively simple like reducing the contrails created by jet aircraft. High clouds hold in heat and reducing the number of high clouds would increase radiational cooling.

This is tantalizing but it's paywalled so I can't see the most important number - how much of the expected climate change would be offset.

Surely not all, we should be that lucky!

Oh so all we needed to fight climate change was some VOOM? Quick, where’s Cat Z?

Please please add "some of" to your title. It will not offset much. It will be a fraction of a degree C.