Dissolved organic carbon in Alaskan Arctic snow: concentrations, light-absorption properties, and bioavailability ...

• Main Authors: Zhang, Yulan, Kang, Shichang, Gao, Tanguang, Sprenger, Michael, Dou, Tingfeng, Han, Wei, Zhang, Qi, Sun, Shiwei, Du, Wentao, Chen, Pengfei, Guo, Junming, Cui, Xiaoqing, Sillanpää, Mika
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: ETH Zurich 2020
• Subjects: dissolved organic carbon; light-absorbing properties; snow cover; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Barrow; glaciers; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000426222; http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/426222

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) plays an important role in the carbon cycle, radiative forcing, and biogeochemistry in cryospheric regions. In this study, concentrations, light-absorption properties and bioavailability of DOC from snow cover in Alaska were characterized. Results indicated that average concentrations of DOC in snow of Alaska (0.17 − 0.30 mg L−1) were lower than that found in Asian mountainous glaciers, but higher that found from polar regions snow. No significant trend of DOC was observed during April to May in 2017 due to the short term study; while the vertical variations generally showed a little higher values in the surface snow than that in the sub-surface snow. An obvious characteristic of DOC light-absorbance in snow between the wavelength of 300 and 700 nm indicated the mass absorption cross section of DOC at 365 nm (MACDOC365) was 0.32 ± 0.24 and 0.37 ± 0.32 m2 g−1 for the snow cover at Barrow site (Arctic Ocean coast) and the other Alaskan regions, respectively. The MACDOC365 values ... : Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, 72 (1) ...