Arctic Station Dirigibile Italia

Fossil fuel contribution to Black Carbon deposition on Svalbard Glaciers (BC14)

Call year: 2024 Status: active IADC_id: 792

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We will characterize the BC content by measuring elemental carbon (EC) and its 14C ratio in snow samples from selected glaciers in the Svalbard archipelago. The application of natural abundance radiocarbon (14C) techniques to carbon-containing aerosols can allow the resolution of fossil versus biomass sources with high precision. Indeed, fossil sources are completely depleted in 14C whereas (modern) biomass sources have a distinct and well-constrained 14C/12C signature. Moreover, warm episodes in the Arctic, increasing due to climate change, can provide new transport routes and also new pollutants from lower latitudes. For example transport of reprocessing wastes from Northern Europe to the Arctic attracted some attention in the past in particular essentially for ocean transfer and only more recently focusing on the atmospheric pathway (see e.g. (?okas et al., 2017) and references therein). Reprocessing wastes are expected to have a relatively high 14C content. As a consequence, 14C-based diagnostic source apportionment of BC especially when coupled with EC/OC and specific organic tracers determination have been demonstrated (Winiger et al., 2016) to be effective in providing an important support to modelling of Arctic BC both for concentration loadings and relative contribution from different sources. By further coupling these radiocarbon data with the stable carbon isotope ratio ?13C, we will be able to distinguish coal, liquid fossil fuel combustion, and non-fossil derived aerosol particle emissions, providing a completely novel and unparalleled source apportionment of BC in the Arctic. In addition, by coupling these measurements to biological data, we will develop a more holistic view on the transfer, sources and fate of aerosols in Svalbard. Objectives The objectives of the proposed project are to: • Perform the first measurements of 14C on black carbon samples in Svalbard snow • Determine the contribution level of fossil fuel to the total black carbon content in Svalbard snow over glaciers • Determine the locality in Svalbard where the level of black barbon can be considered as a true Arctic background in order to improve model comparison  • Determine if there are any relations between the black carbon level, its origin and the microbial content in Svalbard snow

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Fossil fuel contribution to Black Carbon deposition on Svalbard Glaciers (BC14)