Mean snow accumulation rate, and mean methane sulfonate, chloride and nitrate concentration in snow pits and firn cores of Dronning Maud Land ...

• Main Authors: Weller, Rolf, Traufetter, Fidan, Fischer, H, Oerter, Hans, Piel, Claudia, Miller, Heinz
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2004
• Subjects: Atmospheric Chemistry @ AWI AWI_AC; European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica EPICA; Priority Programme 1158 Antarctic Research with Comparable Investigations in Arctic Sea Ice Areas SPP1158; Antarctic; Arctic; Dronning Maud Land; Weller; Antarc*; Antarctica; DML; EPICA; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.855383; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.855383

We quantified postdepositional losses of methane sulfonate (MSA-), nitrate, and chloride at the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) drilling site in Dronning Maud Land (DML) (75°S, 0°E). Analyses of four intermediate deep firn cores and 13 snow pits were considered. We found that about 26 ± 13% of the once deposited nitrate and typically 51 ± 20% of MSA- were lost, while for chloride, no significant depletion could be observed in firn older than one year. Assuming a first order exponential decay rate, the characteristic e-folding time for MSA- is 6.4 ± 3 years and 19 ± 6 years for nitrate. It turns out that for nitrate and MSA- the typical mean concentrations representative for the last 100 years were reached after 5.4 and 6.5 years, respectively, indicating that beneath a depth of around 1.2-1.4 m postdepositional losses can be neglected. In the area of investigation, only MSA- concentrations and postdepositional losses showed a distinct dependence on snow accumulation rate. Consequently, ... : Supplement to: Weller, Rolf; Traufetter, Fidan; Fischer, H; Oerter, Hans; Piel, Claudia; Miller, Heinz (2004): Postdepositional losses of methane sulfonate, nitrate, and chloride at the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica deep-drilling site in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica. Journal of Geophysical Research, 109(D7) ...