Black Carbon (BC) in the snow of glaciers in west China and its potential effects on albedos

Ming, Jing; Xiao, Cunde; Cachier, H.; Qin, Dahe; Qin, Xiang; Li, Zhongqi; Pu, Jianchen

doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2008.09.007

Cited by 205 publications

(205 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Everest and at Haxilegen River No. 48 (11 ng g À1 ) in the Tianshan range (Kaspari et al, 2014;Ming et al, 2009); . The maximum reported BC in surface snow was at the Meikuang glacier (446 ng g À1 ) in the northeastern TP, at Urumqi glacier No.…”

Section: Comparison Of the Results To Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Xu et al (2009a) studied the spatio-temporal variation of calculated BC in a southeast TP glacier and found that BC could strongly impact snow albedo in the melt season. Ming et al (2009) concluded that BC in snow showed a weak negative relationship with the sampling site elevation. Huang et al (2011) showed BC-in-snow concentrations decrease rapidly towards the northeast and away from major industrial regions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Few studies have characterized seasonal BC evolution in surface snow (Kaspari et al, 2014;Ming et al, 2009;Xu et al, 2006). Much of our knowledge of the behavior and effects of BC enrichment via melt and sublimation in snowpacks comes from earlier studies with limited snow stratigraphy and sites.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Climate effect of black carbon aerosol in a Tibetan Plateau glacier

Song

Cao

et al. 2015

Atmospheric Environment

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h i g h l i g h t sWe sampled surface snow and snow pits in the snowmelt season in a Tibetan glacier. We depicted the variability of BC, OC, and dust concentrations. Scavenging efficiency and enrichment for BC and OC were derived. We evaluated BC radiative forcing in snow using SNICAR. a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c tIn the Tibetan Plateau, the black carbon (BC) concentration in surface snow and snow pits has received much attention, whereas the seasonal behavior of aerosol-in-snow concentration, vertical profile, meltscavenging, and enrichment have received relatively little attention. Here we investigate these processes and their impacts on radiative forcing on the Muji glacier in the westernmost Tibetan Plateau during the 2012 snowmelt season. Increasing impurity concentrations were mostly due to post-deposition effects rather than new deposition. On 5 July, BC concentrations in the surface snow were higher than those of fresh snow, implying enrichment via sublimation and/or melting of previous snow. Fresh snow contained 25 ng g À1 BC on 27 July; afterward, BC gradually increased, reaching 730.6 ng g À1 in September. BC, organic carbon (OC), and dust concentrations co-varied but differed in magnitude. Melt-scavenging efficiencies were estimated at 0.19 ± 0.05 and 0.04 ± 0.01 for OC and BC, respectively, and the BC in surface snow increased by 20e25 times depending on melt intensity. BC-in-snow radiative forcing (RF) was approximately 2.2 W m À2 for fresh snow and 18.1e20.4 W m À2 for aged snow, and was sometimes reduced by the presence of dust.

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Section: Comparison Of the Results To Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Climate effect of black carbon aerosol in a Tibetan Plateau glacier

Song

Cao

et al. 2015

Atmospheric Environment

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“…Studies related to supraglacial particle covers have either focused on the influence of extremely thin, sub-millimetre to millimetre scale atmospheric black carbon deposition (e.g. Ming and others, 2009;Xu and others, 2009;Yasunari and others, 2010;Brandt and others, 2011;Hadley and Kirchstetter, 2012;Jacobi and others, 2015) or on the influence of thick, decimetre to metre scale moraine-debris coverage (e.g. Reznichenko and others, 2010;Yang and others, 2010;Nicholson and Benn, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of supraglacial deposits of tephra from Grímsvötn volcano, Iceland, on glacier ablation

Möller

Kukla

et al. 2016

J. Glaciol.

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ABSTRACT. Supraglacial deposits are known for their influence on glacier ablation. The magnitude of this influence depends on the thickness and the type of the deposited material. The effects of thin layers of atmospheric black carbon and of thick moraine debris have been intensively studied. Studies related to regional-scale deposits of volcanic tephra with thicknesses varying between millimetres and metres and thus over several orders of magnitude are scarce. We present results of a field experiment in which we investigated the influence of supraglacial deposits of tephra from Grímsvötn volcano on bare-ice ablation at Svínafelsjökull, Iceland. We observed that the effective thickness at which ablation is maximized ranges from 1.0 to 2.0 mm. At ∼10 mm a critical thickness is reached where sub-tephra ablation equals bare-ice ablation. We calibrated two empirical ablation models and a semi-physicsbased ablation model that all account for varying tephra-layer thicknesses. A comparison of the three models indicates that for tephra deposits in the lower-millimetre scale the temperature/radiationindex model performs best, but that a semi-physics-based approach could be expected to yield superior results for tephra deposits of the order of decimetres.

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“…Recently, the TP cryosphere has undergone rapid changes (Kang et al, 2010), including glacial shrinkage (Xu et al, 2009;Yao et al, 2012b), permafrost degradation (Cheng and Wu, 2007), and reduction in the annual duration of snow cover days (Ménégoz et al, 2014;Xu et al, 2017). Studies on the TP indicate that BC has been a significant contributing factor to the observed cryospheric change Ming et al, 2009;Niu et al, 2017;Xu et al, 2009;Yang et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2017) and a major forcer of climate change Ji, 2016). Observations and simulations also found that dust deposition on snow/ice can change the surface albedo and perturb the surface radiation balance (Ji, 2016;Qu et al, 2014), resulting in a decrease of 5-25 mm snow water equivalent (mm w.e.)…”

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confidence: 99%

Black carbon and mineral dust in snow cover on the Tibetan Plateau

et al. 2018

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Abstract. Snow cover plays a key role for sustaining ecology and society in mountainous regions. Light-absorbing particulates (including black carbon, organic carbon, and mineral dust) deposited on snow can reduce surface albedo and contribute to the near-worldwide melting of snow and ice. This study focused on understanding the role of black carbon and other water-insoluble light-absorbing particulates in the snow cover of the Tibetan Plateau (TP). The results found that the black carbon, organic carbon, and dust concentrations in snow cover generally ranged from 202 to 17 468 ng g −1 , 491 to 13 880 ng g −1 , and 22 to 846 µg g −1 , respectively, with higher concentrations in the central to northern areas of the TP. Back trajectory analysis suggested that the northern TP was influenced mainly by air masses from Central Asia with some Eurasian influence, and air masses in the central and Himalayan region originated mainly from Central and South Asia. The relative biomassburning-sourced black carbon contributions decreased from ∼ 50 % in the southern TP to ∼ 30 % in the northern TP. The relative contribution of black carbon and dust to snow albedo reduction reached approximately 37 and 15 %, respectively. The effect of black carbon and dust reduced the snow cover duration by 3.1 ± 0.1 to 4.4 ± 0.2 days. Meanwhile, the black carbon and dust had important implications for snowmelt water loss over the TP. The findings indicate that the impacts of black carbon and mineral dust need to be properly accounted for in future regional climate projections, particularly in the high-altitude cryosphere.

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Black Carbon (BC) in the snow of glaciers in west China and its potential effects on albedos

Cited by 205 publications

References 23 publications

Climate effect of black carbon aerosol in a Tibetan Plateau glacier

Climate effect of black carbon aerosol in a Tibetan Plateau glacier

Impact of supraglacial deposits of tephra from Grímsvötn volcano, Iceland, on glacier ablation

Black carbon and mineral dust in snow cover on the Tibetan Plateau

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