Variability of sea salts in ice and firn cores from Fimbul Ice Shelf, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica
Major ions were analysed in firn and ice cores located at Fimbul Ice Shelf (FIS), Dronning Maud Land – DML, Antarctica. FIS is the largest ice shelf in the Haakon VII Sea, with an extent of approximately 36 500 km 2 . Three shallow firn cores (about 20 m deep) were retrieved in different ice rises,...
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:tc60516 2023-05-15T13:55:28+02:00 Variability of sea salts in ice and firn cores from Fimbul Ice Shelf, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica Vega, Carmen Paulina Isaksson, Elisabeth Schlosser, Elisabeth Divine, Dmitry Martma, Tõnu Mulvaney, Robert Eichler, Anja Schwikowski-Gigar, Margit 2018-09-27 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1681-2018 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/12/1681/2018/ eng eng doi:10.5194/tc-12-1681-2018 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/12/1681/2018/ eISSN: 1994-0424 Text 2018 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1681-2018 2020-07-20T16:23:18Z Major ions were analysed in firn and ice cores located at Fimbul Ice Shelf (FIS), Dronning Maud Land – DML, Antarctica. FIS is the largest ice shelf in the Haakon VII Sea, with an extent of approximately 36 500 km 2 . Three shallow firn cores (about 20 m deep) were retrieved in different ice rises, Kupol Ciolkovskogo (KC), Kupol Moskovskij (KM), and Blåskimen Island (BI), while a 100 m long core (S100) was drilled near the FIS edge. These sites are distributed over the entire FIS area so that they provide a variety of elevation (50–400 m a.s.l.) and distance (3–42 km) to the sea. Sea-salt species (mainly Na + and Cl − ) generally dominate the precipitation chemistry in the study region. We associate a significant sixfold increase in median sea-salt concentrations, observed in the S100 core after the 1950s, to an enhanced exposure of the S100 site to primary sea-salt aerosol due to a shorter distance from the S100 site to the ice front, and to enhanced sea-salt aerosol production from blowing salty snow over sea ice, most likely related to the calving of Trolltunga occurred during the 1960s. This increase in sea-salt concentrations is synchronous with a shift in non-sea-salt sulfate (nssSO 4 2− ) toward negative values, suggesting a possible contribution of fractionated aerosol to the sea-salt load in the S100 core most likely originating from salty snow found on sea ice. In contrast, there is no evidence of a significant contribution of fractionated sea salt to the ice-rises sites, where the signal would be most likely masked by the large inputs of biogenic sulfate estimated for these sites. In summary, these results suggest that the S100 core contains a sea-salt record dominated by the proximity of the site to the ocean, and processes of sea ice formation in the neighbouring waters. In contrast, the ice-rises firn cores register a larger-scale signal of atmospheric flow conditions and a less efficient transport of sea-salt aerosols to these sites. These findings are a contribution to the understanding of the mechanisms behind sea-salt aerosol production, transport and deposition at coastal Antarctic sites, and the improvement of the current Antarctic sea ice reconstructions based on sea-salt chemical proxies obtained from ice cores. Text Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Blåskimen Island DML Dronning Maud Land Fimbul Ice Shelf Ice Shelf Sea ice Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Antarctic Blåskimen ENVELOPE(-3.000,-3.000,-70.500,-70.500) Dronning Maud Land Fimbul Ice Shelf ENVELOPE(-0.500,-0.500,-70.750,-70.750) Kupol ENVELOPE(68.533,68.533,-72.633,-72.633) Moskovskij ENVELOPE(1.417,1.417,-70.133,-70.133) Trolltunga ENVELOPE(-0.500,-0.500,-69.500,-69.500) The Cryosphere 12 5 1681 1697 |
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Open Polar |
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Copernicus Publications: E-Journals |
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ftcopernicus |
language |
English |
description |
Major ions were analysed in firn and ice cores located at Fimbul Ice Shelf (FIS), Dronning Maud Land – DML, Antarctica. FIS is the largest ice shelf in the Haakon VII Sea, with an extent of approximately 36 500 km 2 . Three shallow firn cores (about 20 m deep) were retrieved in different ice rises, Kupol Ciolkovskogo (KC), Kupol Moskovskij (KM), and Blåskimen Island (BI), while a 100 m long core (S100) was drilled near the FIS edge. These sites are distributed over the entire FIS area so that they provide a variety of elevation (50–400 m a.s.l.) and distance (3–42 km) to the sea. Sea-salt species (mainly Na + and Cl − ) generally dominate the precipitation chemistry in the study region. We associate a significant sixfold increase in median sea-salt concentrations, observed in the S100 core after the 1950s, to an enhanced exposure of the S100 site to primary sea-salt aerosol due to a shorter distance from the S100 site to the ice front, and to enhanced sea-salt aerosol production from blowing salty snow over sea ice, most likely related to the calving of Trolltunga occurred during the 1960s. This increase in sea-salt concentrations is synchronous with a shift in non-sea-salt sulfate (nssSO 4 2− ) toward negative values, suggesting a possible contribution of fractionated aerosol to the sea-salt load in the S100 core most likely originating from salty snow found on sea ice. In contrast, there is no evidence of a significant contribution of fractionated sea salt to the ice-rises sites, where the signal would be most likely masked by the large inputs of biogenic sulfate estimated for these sites. In summary, these results suggest that the S100 core contains a sea-salt record dominated by the proximity of the site to the ocean, and processes of sea ice formation in the neighbouring waters. In contrast, the ice-rises firn cores register a larger-scale signal of atmospheric flow conditions and a less efficient transport of sea-salt aerosols to these sites. These findings are a contribution to the understanding of the mechanisms behind sea-salt aerosol production, transport and deposition at coastal Antarctic sites, and the improvement of the current Antarctic sea ice reconstructions based on sea-salt chemical proxies obtained from ice cores. |
format |
Text |
author |
Vega, Carmen Paulina Isaksson, Elisabeth Schlosser, Elisabeth Divine, Dmitry Martma, Tõnu Mulvaney, Robert Eichler, Anja Schwikowski-Gigar, Margit |
spellingShingle |
Vega, Carmen Paulina Isaksson, Elisabeth Schlosser, Elisabeth Divine, Dmitry Martma, Tõnu Mulvaney, Robert Eichler, Anja Schwikowski-Gigar, Margit Variability of sea salts in ice and firn cores from Fimbul Ice Shelf, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica |
author_facet |
Vega, Carmen Paulina Isaksson, Elisabeth Schlosser, Elisabeth Divine, Dmitry Martma, Tõnu Mulvaney, Robert Eichler, Anja Schwikowski-Gigar, Margit |
author_sort |
Vega, Carmen Paulina |
title |
Variability of sea salts in ice and firn cores from Fimbul Ice Shelf, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica |
title_short |
Variability of sea salts in ice and firn cores from Fimbul Ice Shelf, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica |
title_full |
Variability of sea salts in ice and firn cores from Fimbul Ice Shelf, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica |
title_fullStr |
Variability of sea salts in ice and firn cores from Fimbul Ice Shelf, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica |
title_full_unstemmed |
Variability of sea salts in ice and firn cores from Fimbul Ice Shelf, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica |
title_sort |
variability of sea salts in ice and firn cores from fimbul ice shelf, dronning maud land, antarctica |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1681-2018 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/12/1681/2018/ |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-3.000,-3.000,-70.500,-70.500) ENVELOPE(-0.500,-0.500,-70.750,-70.750) ENVELOPE(68.533,68.533,-72.633,-72.633) ENVELOPE(1.417,1.417,-70.133,-70.133) ENVELOPE(-0.500,-0.500,-69.500,-69.500) |
geographic |
Antarctic Blåskimen Dronning Maud Land Fimbul Ice Shelf Kupol Moskovskij Trolltunga |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Blåskimen Dronning Maud Land Fimbul Ice Shelf Kupol Moskovskij Trolltunga |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Blåskimen Island DML Dronning Maud Land Fimbul Ice Shelf Ice Shelf Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Blåskimen Island DML Dronning Maud Land Fimbul Ice Shelf Ice Shelf Sea ice |
op_source |
eISSN: 1994-0424 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/tc-12-1681-2018 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/12/1681/2018/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1681-2018 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
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12 |
container_issue |
5 |
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1681 |
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1697 |
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