Brief communication: Dose-dependent enhancement of snow mass loss by biomass-burning carbonaceous particles on a tropical Andean glacier

Abstract. We conducted a replicated 9 h field experiment on Artesonraju Glacier, Peru, to quantify snow mass loss under surface loadings (0–1052.3 mg m⁻²) of biomass-burning-derived carbonaceous particles. Common background snow minimized mineral-dust confounding and isolated the incremental effect of added combustion-derived particles. Total snow mass loss increased almost linearly with loading (R² = 0.997), with a sensitivity of 0.0089 mm w.e. per mg m⁻². Drainage-related mass loss increased by 1.2 ± 0.9 % at 10.5 mg m⁻² and 14.7 ± 6.0 % at 1052.3 mg m⁻². These results show that fire-derived particles can measurably enhance tropical Andean glacier snow loss.