Seasonal and interannual variability of elemental carbon in the snowpack of Storglaciären, northern Sweden

Abstract

ABSTRACT. We studied the variability of elemental carbon (EC) over 3 years in the winter snowpack of Storglaciären, Sweden. The goal of this study was to relate the seasonal variation in EC to specific snow accumulation events in order to improve understanding of how different atmospheric circulation patterns control the deposition of EC. Specifically, we related meteorological parameters (e.g. wind direction, precipitation) to snow physical properties, EC content, stable-isotope d d 18O ratios and anion concentrations in the snowpack. The distribution of EC in the snowpack varied between years. Low EC contents corresponded to a predominance of weather systems originating in the northwest, i.e. North Atlantic. Analysis of single layers within the snowpacks showed that snow layers enriched in heavy isotopes coincided predominantly with low EC contents but high chloride and sulfate concentration. Based on this isotopic and geochemical evidence, snow deposited during these events had a strong oceanic, i.e. North Atlantic, imprint. In contrast, snow layers with high EC content coincided with snow layers depleted in heavy isotopes but high anion concentrations, indicating a more continental source of air masses and origin of EC from industrial emissions.

Improved accuracy of cross-borehole radar velocity models for ice property analysis

“…Thermistor measure-ments of the ice indicate a temperature variation between -5°C and approximately 0°C ; hence, we can assume that the temperature dependence is negligible for all constituent parts. We approximate conductivity from ice lenses in snow-pit data (Ingvander et al, 2013) to be approximately 25 μS∕m, which agrees with low-frequency measurements made by Walford et al (1987). Therefore, we assume the dielectric permittivities of air and water are equal to 1 and 87.9, respectively (Murray et al, 2000b;Endres et al, 2009), and ice to be equal to 3.188, as calculated by Bohleber et al (2012) for ice using 100 MHz radar.…”

Elemental and water-insoluble organic carbon in Svalbard snow: a synthesis of observations during 2007–2018

“…Owing to the scarcity of direct precipitation measurements across Svalbard, reconstructing the snowpack accumulation history is challenging, and estimates from snowpits, probing and radar can only fill some of the spatial and temporal gaps. This difficulty can be partly circumvented by using the output of a snowpack model forced with meteorological observations (e.g., Jacobi et al, 2019). In this study, we use a coupled energy balance-snow model (van Pelt et al, 2012), which has recently been employed to investigate glacier and snow conditions across Svalbard .…”

“…This was followed in 2007-2009 by more detailed investigations of the distribution of BC across the archipelago (Forsström et al, 2009(Forsström et al, , 2013. Localized studies have also been carried out near Longyearbyen (Aamaas et al, 2011;Khan et al, 2017) and Ny-Ålesund (Sihna et al, 2018;Jacobi et al, 2019). In addition, two ice cores recovered from the Lomonosovfonna and Holtedahlfonna ice fields (Spitsbergen) have provided insights into longer-term variations in BC deposition on Svalbard (Ruppel et al, 2014(Ruppel et al, , 2017Osmont et al, 2018).…”

Origin of elemental carbon in snow from Western Siberia and northwestern European Russia during winter–spring 2014, 2015 and 2016

“…The content of carbonate (CO 2− 3 )-carbon on the filters was measured with TOA, following thermal-oxidative pretreatment based on the approach described by Jankowski et al (2008). A punch of 1.5 cm 2 from each filter was heated at 450 • C for 2 h in ambient air to remove OC and EC but not CO 2− 3 -carbon.…”