Search Results
A full year of aerosol size distribution data from the central Arctic under an extreme positive Arctic Oscillation: insights from the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition
2023, Boyer, Matthew, Aliaga, Diego, Pernov, Jakob Boyd, Angot, Hélène, Quéléver, Lauriane L. J., Dada, Lubna, Heutte, Benjamin, Dall'Osto, Manuel, Beddows, David C. S., Brasseur, Zoé, Beck, Ivo, Bucci, Silvia, Duetsch, Marina, Stohl, Andreas, Laurila, Tiia, Asmi, Eija, Massling, Andreas, Thomas, Daniel Charles, Nøjgaard, Jakob Klenø, Chan, Tak, Sharma, Sangeeta, Tunved, Peter, Krejci, Radovan, Hansson, Hans Christen, Bianchi, Federico, Lehtipalo, Katrianne, Wiedensohler, Alfred, Weinhold, Kay, Kulmala, Markku, Petäjä, Tuukka, Sipilä, Mikko, Schmale, Julia, Jokinen, Tuija
The Arctic environment is rapidly changing due to accelerated warming in the region. The warming trend is driving a decline in sea ice extent, which thereby enhances feedback loops in the surface energy budget in the Arctic. Arctic aerosols play an important role in the radiative balance and hence the climate response in the region, yet direct observations of aerosols over the Arctic Ocean are limited. In this study, we investigate the annual cycle in the aerosol particle number size distribution (PNSD), particle number concentration (PNC), and black carbon (BC) mass concentration in the central Arctic during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition. This is the first continuous, year-long data set of aerosol PNSD ever collected over the sea ice in the central Arctic Ocean. We use a k-means cluster analysis, FLEXPART simulations, and inverse modeling to evaluate seasonal patterns and the influence of different source regions on the Arctic aerosol population. Furthermore, we compare the aerosol observations to land-based sites across the Arctic, using both long-term measurements and observations during the year of the MOSAiC expedition (2019-2020), to investigate interannual variability and to give context to the aerosol characteristics from within the central Arctic. Our analysis identifies that, overall, the central Arctic exhibits typical seasonal patterns of aerosols, including anthropogenic influence from Arctic haze in winter and secondary aerosol processes in summer. The seasonal pattern corresponds to the global radiation, surface air temperature, and timing of sea ice melting/freezing, which drive changes in transport patterns and secondary aerosol processes. In winter, the Norilsk region in Russia/Siberia was the dominant source of Arctic haze signals in the PNSD and BC observations, which contributed to higher accumulation-mode PNC and BC mass concentrations in the central Arctic than at land-based observatories. We also show that the wintertime Arctic Oscillation (AO) phenomenon, which was reported to achieve a record-breaking positive phase during January-March 2020, explains the unusual timing and magnitude of Arctic haze across the Arctic region compared to longer-term observations. In summer, the aerosol PNCs of the nucleation and Aitken modes are enhanced; however, concentrations were notably lower in the central Arctic over the ice pack than at land-based sites further south. The analysis presented herein provides a current snapshot of Arctic aerosol processes in an environment that is characterized by rapid changes, which will be crucial for improving climate model predictions, understanding linkages between different environmental processes, and investigating the impacts of climate change in future Arctic aerosol studies.
The future sea-level contribution of the Greenland ice sheet: A multi-model ensemble study of ISMIP6
2020, Goelzer, Heiko, Nowicki, Sophie, Payne, Anthony, Larour, Eric, Seroussi, Helene, Lipscomb, William H., Gregory, Jonathan, Abe-Ouchi, Ayako, Shepherd, Andrew, Simon, Erika, Agosta, Cécile, Alexander, Patrick, Aschwanden, Andy, Barthel, Alice, Calov, Reinhard, Chambers, Christopher, Choi, Youngmin, Cuzzone, Joshua, Dumas, Christophe, Edwards, Tamsin, Felikson, Denis, Fettweis, Xavier, Golledge, Nicholas R., Greve, Ralf, Humbert, Angelika, Huybrechts, Philippe, Le clec'h, Sebastien, Lee, Victoria, Leguy, Gunter, Little, Chris, Lowry, Daniel P., Morlighem, Mathieu, Nias, Isabel, Quiquet, Aurelien, Rückamp, Martin, Schlegel, Nicole-Jeanne, Slater, Donald A., Smith, Robin S., Straneo, Fiammetta, Tarasov, Lev, van de Wal, Roderik, van den Broeke, Michiel
The Greenland ice sheet is one of the largest contributors to global mean sea-level rise today and is expected to continue to lose mass as the Arctic continues to warm. The two predominant mass loss mechanisms are increased surface meltwater run-off and mass loss associated with the retreat of marine-terminating outlet glaciers. In this paper we use a large ensemble of Greenland ice sheet models forced by output from a representative subset of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) global climate models to project ice sheet changes and sea-level rise contributions over the 21st century. The simulations are part of the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP6 (ISMIP6).We estimate the sea-level contribution together with uncertainties due to future climate forcing, ice sheet model formulations and ocean forcing for the two greenhouse gas concentration scenarios RCP8.5 and RCP2.6. The results indicate that the Greenland ice sheet will continue to lose mass in both scenarios until 2100, with contributions of 90-50 and 32-17mm to sea-level rise for RCP8.5 and RCP2.6, respectively. The largest mass loss is expected from the south-west of Greenland, which is governed by surface mass balance changes, continuing what is already observed today. Because the contributions are calculated against an unforced control experiment, these numbers do not include any committed mass loss, i.e. mass loss that would occur over the coming century if the climate forcing remained constant. Under RCP8.5 forcing, ice sheet model uncertainty explains an ensemble spread of 40 mm, while climate model uncertainty and ocean forcing uncertainty account for a spread of 36 and 19 mm, respectively. Apart from those formally derived uncertainty ranges, the largest gap in our knowledge is about the physical understanding and implementation of the calving process, i.e. the interaction of the ice sheet with the ocean. © Author(s) 2020.
Combining atmospheric and snow radiative transfer models to assess the solar radiative effects of black carbon in the Arctic
2020, Donth, Tobias, Jäkel, Evelyn, Ehrlich, André, Heinold, Bernd, Schacht, Jacob, Herber, Andreas, Zanatta, Marco, Wendisch, Manfred
The magnitude of solar radiative effects (cooling or warming) of black carbon (BC) particles embedded in the Arctic atmosphere and surface snow layer was explored on the basis of case studies. For this purpose, combined atmospheric and snow radiative transfer simulations were performed for cloudless and cloudy conditions on the basis of BC mass concentrations measured in pristine early summer and more polluted early spring conditions. The area of interest is the remote sea-ice-covered Arctic Ocean in the vicinity of Spitsbergen, northern Greenland, and northern Alaska typically not affected by local pollution. To account for the radiative interactions between the black-carbon-containing snow surface layer and the atmosphere, an atmospheric and snow radiative transfer model were coupled iteratively. For pristine summer conditions (no atmospheric BC, minimum solar zenith angles of 55 ) and a representative BC particle mass concentration of 5 ng g-1 in the surface snow layer, a positive daily mean solar radiative forcing of +0.2 W m-2 was calculated for the surface radiative budget. A higher load of atmospheric BC representing early springtime conditions results in a slightly negative mean radiative forcing at the surface of about -0.05 W m-2, even when the low BC mass concentration measured in the pristine early summer conditions was embedded in the surface snow layer. The total net surface radiative forcing combining the effects of BC embedded in the atmosphere and in the snow layer strongly depends on the snow optical properties (snow specific surface area and snow density). For the conditions over the Arctic Ocean analyzed in the simulations, it was found that the atmospheric heating rate by water vapor or clouds is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude larger than that by atmospheric BC. Similarly, the daily mean total heating rate (6 K d-1) within a snowpack due to absorption by the ice was more than 1 order of magnitude larger than that of atmospheric BC (0.2 K d-1). Also, it was shown that the cooling by atmospheric BC of the near-surface air and the warming effect by BC embedded in snow are reduced in the presence of clouds. © 2020 Copernicus GmbH. All rights reserved.
The Importance of the Representation of DMS Oxidation in Global Chemistry‐Climate Simulations
2021, Hoffmann, Erik Hans, Heinold, Bernd, Kubin, Anne, Tegen, Ina, Herrmann, Hartmut
The oxidation of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is key for the natural sulfate aerosol formation and its climate impact. Multiphase chemistry is an important oxidation pathway but neglected in current chemistry-climate models. Here, the DMS chemistry in the aerosol-chemistry-climate model ECHAM-HAMMOZ is extended to include multiphase methane sulfonic acid (MSA) formation in deliquesced aerosol particles, parameterized by reactive uptake. First simulations agree well with observed gas-phase MSA concentrations. The implemented formation pathways are quantified to contribute up to 60% to the sulfate aerosol burden over the Southern Ocean and Arctic/Antarctic regions. While globally the impact on the aerosol radiative forcing almost levels off, a significantly more positive solar radiative forcing of up to +0.1 W m−2 is computed in the Arctic (>60°N). The findings imply the need of both further laboratory and model studies on the atmospheric multiphase oxidation of DMS.