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- Gramlich, Yvette, 1993-, et al.
(författare)
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Impact of Biomass Burning on Arctic Aerosol Composition
- 2024
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Ingår i: ACS Earth and Space Chemistry. - 2472-3452.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Emissions from biomass burning (BB) occurring at midlatitudes can reach the Arctic, where they influence the remote aerosol population. By using measurements of levoglucosan and black carbon, we identify seven BB events reaching Svalbard in 2020. We find that most of the BB events are significantly different to the rest of the year (nonevents) for most of the chemical and physical properties. Aerosol mass and number concentrations are enhanced by up to 1 order of magnitude during the BB events. During BB events, the submicrometer aerosol bulk composition changes from an organic- and sulfate-dominated regime to a clearly organic-dominated regime. This results in a significantly lower hygroscopicity parameter κ for BB aerosol (0.4 ± 0.2) compared to nonevents (0.5 ± 0.2), calculated from the nonrefractory aerosol composition. The organic fraction in the BB aerosol showed no significant difference for the O:C ratios (0.9 ± 0.3) compared to the year (0.9 ± 0.6). Accumulation mode particles were present during all BB events, while in the summer an additional Aitken mode was observed, indicating a mixture of the advected air mass with locally produced particles. BB tracers (vanillic, homovanillic, and hydroxybenzoic acid, nitrophenol, methylnitrophenol, and nitrocatechol) were significantly higher when air mass back trajectories passed over active fire regions in Eastern Europe, indicating agricultural and wildfires as sources. Our results suggest that the impact of BB on the Arctic aerosol depends on the season in which they occur, and agricultural and wildfires from Eastern Europe have the potential to disturb the background conditions the most.
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| 2. |
- Heslin-Rees, Dominic, 1993-, et al.
(författare)
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Increase in precipitation scavenging contributes to long-term reductions of light-absorbing aerosol in the Arctic
- 2024
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 24:4, s. 2059-2075
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We investigated long-term changes using a harmonised 22-year data set of aerosol light absorption measurements, in conjunction with air mass history and aerosol source analysis. The measurements were performed at Zeppelin Observatory, Svalbard, from 2002 to 2023. We report a statistically significant decreasing long-term trend for the light absorption coefficient. However, the last 8 years of 2016–2023 showed a slight increase in the magnitude of the light absorption coefficient for the Arctic haze season. In addition, we observed an increasing trend in the single-scattering albedo from 2002 to 2023. Five distinct source regions, representing different transport pathways, were identified. The trends involving air masses from the five regions showed decreasing absorption coefficients, except for the air masses from Eurasia. We show that the changes in the occurrences of each transport pathway cannot explain the reductions in the absorption coefficient observed at the Zeppelin station. An increase in contributions of air masses from more marine regions, with lower absorption coefficients, is compensated for by an influence from high-emission regions. The proportion of air masses en route to Zeppelin, which have been influenced by active fires, has undergone a noticeable increase starting in 2015. However, this increase has not impacted the long-term trends in the concentration of light-absorbing aerosol. Along with aerosol optical properties, we also show an increasing trend in accumulated surface precipitation experienced by air masses en route to the Zeppelin Observatory. We argue that the increase in precipitation, as experienced by air masses arriving at the station, can explain a quarter of the long-term reduction in the light absorption coefficient. We emphasise that meteorological conditions en route to the Zeppelin Observatory are critical for understanding the observed trends.
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| 3. |
- Cremer, Roxana S., 1993-
(författare)
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Lifecycle of Black Carbon in the Arctic
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This PhD thesis investigates the atmospheric life cycle of Black Carbon (BC) in the Arctic. The Arctic region has been rapidly changing in the last decades and the role of BC aerosols in this is still uncertain. BC aerosols are mainly produced by incomplete combustion of biomass burning and fossil fuel and stand out from other aerosol species due to their strong ability to absorb solar radiation. The impact of BC on the Earth’s radiation budget is estimated to be overall warming. While the indirect effect, interactions with clouds, is estimated to be negative, the direct radiation effect is positive because of the absorption ability of the BC. These estimates are uncertain, especially for aerosol-cloud interactions. To estimate the role of BC in the Arctic, it is necessary to know the size distribution of BC, the transport pattern and the loss processes that affect the BC concentration. In this thesis, in-situ observations from the Zeppelin observatory in the Arctic, as well as global modelling tools, are used to answer the following research questions: 1. What kind of new insights about BC size distributions can be gained from simultaneous long-term measurements of absorption and aerosol number size distributions? 2. How do source regions impact BC size distributions measured at Zeppelin? 3. How are observations of biomass burning tracers at Zeppelin connected to transport from source regions with active fires? 4. How do emissions, as well as, wet and dry removal pathways drive the diversity of the BC life cycle in General Circulation Models (GCMs)?A statistical method to derive BC size distributions from filter-based absorption measurements was developed and applied to long-term data from the Arctic measurement station Zeppelin on Svalbard. Promising results were obtained for inferring BC number size distributions from absorption and size distribution data, except for the most polluted conditions with the air masses arriving from Northern Eurasia and Russia - as identified from an analysis using back trajectories. Trajectory analysis was also used to link events with elevated biomass burning tracers and BC at Zeppelin to fire activity measured by satellites on the continents around the Arctic. To investigate the interplay of emissions and removal processes of BC in models and to understand the diversity in model representation of BC in the Arctic, a detailed analysis of processes in four GCMs was performed. The BC concentrations in the Arctic were compared and their response to removal processes during long-range transport to Zeppelin. The results underline the importance of BC sources and processing far away from the Arctic.The knowledge gained about the BC life cycle will facilitate a better assessment of the large-scale influence of BC on the Arctic climate and environment.
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