Earth Observatory4 min read A Bare Summer for Barnes Ice CapOnce snow cover melts away and bare ice is exposed, melting speeds up in the Arctic summer sunshine. Bare ice is darker than snow and absorbs more solar energy, so as the reflective snow cover disappears, the ice cap warms and melts faster. The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 9 acquired these images of the ice cap on July 12, 2026. Faint, curving gray lines indicate the many millennia of snow and ice accumulation that built the ice cap. Barnes Ice Cap has been snow-free before, including in 2019, 2020, and 2024, Pelto said, but this year it happened sooner.