Expanding shrubs in the Arctic change snowpacks into a mix of snow, impurities and buried branches. Snow is a translucent medium into which light penetrates and gets partly absorbed by branches or impurities. Measurements of light attenuation in snow in Northern Quebec, Canada, showed (1) black-carbon-dominated light attenuation in snowpacks without shrubs and (2) buried branches influence radiation attenuation in snow locally, leading to melting and pockets of large crystals close to branches.

We report on phosphorus dynamics in the surface layer of the Mediterranean Sea. Highly sensitive phosphate measurements revealed vertical gradients above the phosphacline. The relative contribution of diapycnal fluxes to total external supply of phosphate to the mixed layer decreased towards the east, where atmospheric deposition dominated. Taken together, external sources of phosphate contributed little to total supply, which was mainly sustained by enzymatic hydrolysis of organic phosphorus.