Ion enrichment of snowmelt runoff water caused by basal ice formation

Lilbæk, Gro; Pomeroy, John W.

doi:10.1002/hyp.7028

Cited by 31 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Even so, extending the period over which the experiments were conducted was not thought to change the overall outcome; the individual values may change, but they will still show the same trend. With respect to the concentrations of the solute added to the soil surface, these were higher than normally observed during snowmelt (e.g., Lilbaek and Pomeroy, 2008). This was an attempt to enhance the indication of changes in ion load and was not believed to impact the overall results either.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Laboratory evidence for enhanced infiltration of ion load during snowmelt

Lilbæk

Pomeroy

2010

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Meltwater ion concentration and infiltration rate into frozen soil both decline rapidly as snowmelt progresses. Their temporal association is highly non-linear and a covariance term must be added in order to use time-averaged values of snowmelt ion concentration and infiltration rate to calculate chemical infiltration. The covariance is labelled enhanced ion infiltration and represents the additional ion load that infiltrates due to the timing of high meltwater concentration and infiltration rate. Previous assessment of the impact of enhanced ion infiltration has been theoretical; thus, experiments were carried out to examine whether enhanced infiltration can be recognized in controlled laboratory settings and to what extent its magnitude varies with soil moisture. Three experiments were carried out: dry soil conditions, unsaturated soil conditions, and saturated soil conditions. Chloride solutions were added to the surface of frozen soil columns; the concentration decreased exponentially over time to simulate snow meltwater. Infiltration excess water was collected and its chloride concentration and volume determined. Ion load infiltrating the frozen soil was specified by mass conservation. Results showed that infiltrating ion load increased with decreasing soil moisture as expected; however, the impact of enhanced ion infiltration increased considerably with increasing soil moisture. Enhanced infiltration caused 2.5 times more ion load to infiltrate during saturated conditions than that estimated using time-averaged ion concentrations and infiltration rates alone. For unsaturated conditions, enhanced ion infiltration was reduced to 1.45 and for dry soils Correspondence to: G. Lilbaek (gro.lilbaek@ualberta.ca) to 1.3. Reduction in infiltration excess ion load due to enhanced infiltration increased slightly (2-5%) over time, being greatest for the dry soil (45%) and least for the saturated soil (6%). The importance of timing between high ion concentrations and high infiltration rates was best illustrated in the unsaturated experiment, which showed large inter-column variation in enhanced ion infiltration due to variation in this temporal covariance.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…This will result in an alteration of both ion pathway and concentration. When basal ice is present, all water runs off and further ion concentration enrichment occurs (Lilbaek and Pomeroy, 2008). Conversely, when partitioning occurs, enhanced infiltration of meltwater ion load can result in relatively dilute runoff water .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory evidence for enhanced infiltration of ion load during snowmelt

Lilbæk

Pomeroy

2010

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…When snow melt starts, elution of its solutes occurs, and the first meltwater will be enriched in ions compared to the snowpack (e.g., Lilbaek and Pomeroy, 2008); typically, the first 20-30% of the meltwater will contain 50-80% of the snowpack solutes (Johannessen et al, 1975;Bales et al, 1989 (Kuhn, 2001, and references therein), but depends on the characteristics of the snowpack, for instance on the amount of melt/freeze cycles before and during melt (Colbeck, 1981;Brimblecombe et al, 1986;Bales et al, 1989;Cragin et al, 1996). The elution of chemical solutes, including nutrients, then affects both the microbial habitats within the snow (Hodson, 2006;Larose et al, 2010a), and underlying soils and ice layers (Jones, 1991(Jones, , 1999Schmidt et al, 1999;Edwards et al, 2007), but also ecosystems downstream (e.g., Gagne et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbial Cell Retention in a Melting High Arctic Snowpack, Svalbard

Björkman

Žárský

Kühnel

et al. 2014

Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…The snow pack, covering up to 50% of the Northern Hemisphere (Barry, 1992;Robinson et al, 1993), works as an efficient winter reservoir for deposited NO À 3 , releasing a concentrated pulse of nutrients during the early stages of snow-melt runoff (e.g. Johannessen et al, 1975;Bales et al, 1989;Goto-Azuma et al, 1994;Lilbaek and Pomeroy, 2008). Atmospheric oxidised nitrogen can reach the ground via wet deposition, in which scavenging by snow or rain leads to HNO 3 and a proportion of p-NO 3 becoming dissolved nitrate (NO À 3 ) and follows the precipitation to ground (Barrie, 1991;Diehl et al, 1995;Abbatt, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrate dry deposition in Svalbard

Björkman

Kühnel

Partridge

et al. 2013

Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A B S T R A C T Arctic regions are generally nutrient limited, receiving an extensive part of their bio-available nitrogen from the deposition of atmospheric reactive nitrogen. Reactive nitrogen oxides, as nitric acid (HNO 3 ) and nitrate aerosols (p-NO 3 ), can either be washed out from the atmosphere by precipitation or dry deposited, dissolving to nitrate (NO À 3 ). During winter, NO À 3 is accumulated in the snowpack and released as a pulse during spring melt. Quantification of NO À 3 deposition is essential to assess impacts on Arctic terrestrial ecology and for ice core interpretations. However, the individual importance of wet and dry deposition is poorly quantified in the high Arctic regions where in-situ measurements are demanding. In this study, three different methods are employed to quantify NO and p-NO 3 using atmospheric concentrations and stability observations, resulting in a total combined nitrate dry deposition of Á10.7691.26 mg m (2 . The model indicates that deposition primarily occurs via HNO 3 with only a minor contribution by p-NO 3 . Modelled median deposition velocities largely explain this difference: 0.63 cm s (1 for HNO 3 while p-NO 3 was 0.0025 and 0.16 cm s (1 for particle sizes 0.7 and 7 mm, respectively.Overall, the three methods are within two standard errors agreement, attributing an average 14% (total range of 2Á44%) of the total nitrate deposition to dry deposition. Dry deposition events were identified in association with elevated atmospheric concentrations, corroborating recent studies that identified episodes of rapid pollution transport and deposition to the Arctic.

show abstract

Ion enrichment of snowmelt runoff water caused by basal ice formation

Cited by 31 publications

References 16 publications

Laboratory evidence for enhanced infiltration of ion load during snowmelt

Laboratory evidence for enhanced infiltration of ion load during snowmelt

Microbial Cell Retention in a Melting High Arctic Snowpack, Svalbard

Nitrate dry deposition in Svalbard

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About