The plausible impact of light-absorbing aerosols on snow darkening and subsequent retreating of glaciers is a global climatic concern. In this study, we present the characteristics of multi-layer distribution and effects of Black Carbon (BC) and inorganic ions in the snowpacks of Khardung (KG) and Phuche (PG) glaciers (>5 km a.s.l.) in the western Himalayas. We observed significant vertical heterogeneity of BC in the snowpacks of KG (~42–428 ng g⁻¹) and PG (~59 and 299 ng g⁻¹), with higher concentrations in aged snow. Similar to BC, ions in the multi-layer snowpack also depicted prominent vertical heterogeneity with strong crustal influence (as indicated by abundant nssCa²⁺) in the aged snow layers of KG, which also possess a higher snow-melt rate as compared to PG. Among the other inorganic ions, the vertical profiles of nssSO₄²⁻ and NO₃⁻ indicated elution and refreezing effects. The computation of the effective snow albedo for different snow-darkening and snow-physical processes vindicated the need of considering the multilayer model for the accurate quantification of effects of heterogeneous distributions of light absorbing aerosols (LAA) in the snowpacks. Following this, the multi-layer simulations of snow-albedo in the SNICAR model demonstrated the change in snow albedo by 2.5–9.0% for the amount of LAA observed in our study. This resulted in snow albedo forcing of 49.2 Wm^-2 for PG, 30.8 Wm^-2 for KG1 and 29.6 Wm^-2 for KG2 for the typical snow-physical properties in the study region. Comprehensive data sets comprising physical, morphological and chemical properties of aerosols and snow are imperative to predict aerosol-induced snow darkening and the associated anomalous melting of snow/glacier over the Himalayan region.

吸光气溶胶对积雪变暗和随后冰川退缩的可能影响是全球气候问题。在本研究中，我们展示了喜马拉雅西部 Khardung (KG) 和 Phuche (PG) 冰川（> 5 km asl）积雪中黑碳 (BC) 和无机离子的多层分布特征和影响。我们观察到 KG (~ 42–428 ng g ^-1 ) 和 PG (~ 59 和 299 ng g ^-1 )雪堆中 BC 的显着垂直异质性，在老化雪中浓度更高。与BC类似，多层积雪中的离子也表现出突出的垂直非均质性和强烈的地壳影响（如丰富的nssCa ²⁺) 在 KG 的老化雪层中，与 PG 相比，其融雪率也更高。在其他无机离子中，nssSO ₄ ^2-和NO ₃ ^-的垂直分布表明了洗脱和再冻结效应。不同雪变暗和雪物理过程的有效雪反照率的计算表明，需要考虑多层模型来准确量化积雪中吸光气溶胶 (LAA) 不均匀分布的影响。在此之后，SNICAR 模型中积雪反照率的多层模拟表明，对于我们研究中观察到的 LAA 量，积雪反照率变化了 2.5-9.0%。这导致雪反照率49.2 Wm的计算迫使^-2为PG，30.8了Wm^-2对于KG1和29.6了Wm ^-2为KG2在研究地区典型的雪物理性能。包含气溶胶和雪的物理、形态和化学特性的综合数据集对于预测喜马拉雅地区上空气溶胶引起的雪变暗和相关的雪/冰川异常融化是必不可少的。