Brown carbon (BrC) aerosol can be produced by the smoldering combustion of peat, a wildland fuel common at high latitude, often adjacent to the cryosphere. However, little is known about how BrC deposition onto snow changes snow optical and radiative properties. Here, we artificially deposited BrC onto natural snow surfaces, monitored changes of the spectral surface albedo, characterized optical properties of deposited aerosol, and compared to modeled values of albedo and radiative forcing.