
They are a stunning series of images, which were supposed to reveal the ice expanses of Greenland.

Instead, they show something quite different - a blackened continent of 'dark snow'.

Experts say they were stunned by the pictures, which show ice covered in soot - causing it to melt more quickly.

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Experts say they were stunned by the pictures, which show ice covered in soot - causing it to melt more quickly near Kangerlugssuaq on the Arctic Circle (67 degrees north latitude at 1,010 meters above sea level).

HOW THEY DID IT Prof. Jason Box (left) and Johnny Ryan, a Ph.D. student at Aberystwyth University, hold the drone they used to take pictures of the Greenland Ice Sheet. As part of the research, they have been using drones (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs) to photograph the surface from low altitude to examine the development of surface structures associated with melting. Advertisement

'I was just stunned, really,' Jason Box of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland told Slate.

He and graduate student Johnny Ryan of Aberystwyth University spent much of the summer on the western ice sheet at Camp Dark Snow, near Kangerlugssuaq on the Arctic Circle (67 degrees north latitude at 1,010 meters above sea level).

The team was investigating the 'dark snow' phenomenon.

They found the mid-summer melt surface in this area is pocked with 0.5 to 1 meter-wide (1.5 to 3 feet-wide) potholes with black grit and dust collected at the bottom.

This black material is called cryoconite, and is comprised of dust and soot deposited on the surface, and melted out from the older ice exposed by melting.

The dark patches are often glued together by tiny microbes.

The UAV photos reveal a surface riven with fractures, and drained by ephemeral rivers of melt water.

This year, Greenland's ice sheet was the darkest Box (or anyone else) has ever measured.

Box said: 'In 2014 the ice sheet is precisely 5.6 percent darker, producing an additional absorption of energy equivalent with roughly twice the US annual electricity consumption.'

Researchers also say 2014 will also be the year with the highest number of forest fires ever measured in Arctic.

Box calculated that Arctic fires have been burning at a rate that's double that of just a decade ago.

The UAV photos reveal a surface riven with fractures, and drained by ephemeral rivers of melt water. The black material is called cryoconite, and is comprised of dust and soot deposited on the surface, and melted out from the older ice exposed by melting.

The drone takes a picture of the surface (and the operator, J. Ryan) on August 9, 2014 from low altitude, showing numerous cryoconite holes filled with black dust, grit, and soot that had accumulated in the winter snowpack, and melted out of the older ice below

Researchers have closely monitored the extent of the melt

As part of the research, they have been using drones (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs) to photograph the surface from low altitude to examine the development of surface structures associated with melting.

Strips of images and albedo measurements from the UAV are compared with simultaneous satellite images from the NASA MODIS sensor as an intermediate state to relate ground albedo measurements with that of the entire ice sheet.

A recent study has found that, as the Arctic warms, forests there are turning to flame at rates unprecedented in the last 10,000 years.

This year, those fires produced volumes of smoke and soot that Box says drifted over to Greenland.

In total, more than 3.3 million hectares burned in Canada's Northwest Territories alone this year—nearly 9 times the long term average—resulting in a charred area bigger than the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts combined.

That figure includes the massive Birch Creek Complex, which could end up being the biggest wildfire in Canadian history, and spread a smoke plume all the way to Portugal.

In an interview with Canada's National Post earlier this year, NASA scientist Douglas Morton said, 'It's a major event in the life of the earth system to have a huge set of fires like what you are seeing in Western Canada.'

Box says the real challenge is to rank what fraction of the soot he finds on the Greenland ice is from forest fires, and what is from other sources, like factories.

Last month researchers confirmed Earth's two largest ice sheets are now dumping an 'incredible' 120 cubic miles of ice into the oceans each year.

This is equal to an ice layer 1,970ft (600 metres) thick that would stretch over an area half the size of London, researchers claim.

Overall, the rate of ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet has doubled.

Meanwhile the rate of volume loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has tripled since 2009.

Box says the real challenge is to rank what fraction of the soot he finds on the Greenland ice is from forest fires, and what is from other sources, like factories.

The team found the mid-summer melt surface in this area is pocked with 0.5 to 1 meter-wide (1.5 to 3 feet-wide) potholes with black grit and dust collected at the bottom.

This black material is called cryoconite, and is comprised of dust and soot deposited on the surface, and melted out from the older ice exposed by melting.The dark patches are often glued together by tiny microbes.