Albedo

When you walk barefoot on a white marble floor on a sunny day, the surface feels relatively cool. Step onto a black asphalt road, however, and the heat is almost unbearable. You have just experienced the principle of firsthand.

If the Greenland Ice Sheet (which holds 8 feet of sea level rise) and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet cross an albedo tipping point, their complete loss becomes irreversible on human timescales. We will have effectively removed the planet’s sunglasses. Albedo