Sources and Radiative Absorption of Water-Soluble Brown Carbon in the High Arctic Atmosphere

Siyao Yue, Srinivas Bikkina, Meng Gao, Leonard A. Barrie, Kimitaka Kawamura, Pingqing Fu*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

    22 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Brown carbon (BrC) is a source of light-absorbing aerosols. The Arctic is more sensitive to emissions of light-absorbing aerosols than lower latitudes. Knowledge of BrC in a historical period is beneficial to understand its role in a changing climate. Here, we present measurement of water-soluble BrC (WS-BrC) for the Arctic aerosols during late winter-late spring in 1991. Mass absorption coefficient (0.07 ± 0.04 M/m) and efficiency (0.41 ± 0.21 m2/g) at 365 nm of WS-BrC were lower than those in polluted urban and rural regions. WS-BrC was mainly from biomass burning/combustion (dark winter to mid-March) and marine sources connected with photochemical gas to particle conversion (after polar sunrise to June). Solar radiative absorption of WS-BrC relative to elemental carbon was 5% on average in February to April and surged to 34% after mid-May. This study helps in understanding the role of BrC in the Arctic climate.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)14881-14891
    Number of pages11
    JournalGeophysical Research Letters
    Volume46
    Issue number24
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 28 Dec 2019

    Scopus Subject Areas

    • Geophysics
    • General Earth and Planetary Sciences

    User-Defined Keywords

    • biomass burning
    • brown carbon
    • Canadian high Arctic
    • fossil fuel combustion
    • organic aerosol

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