What controls chemical aerosol signals in Greenland ice cores ...

• Main Author: Gfeller, Gideon
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: :unas 2015
• Subjects: 530 Physics; Greenland; Greenland ice cores; North Greenland
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48350/192567; https://boris.unibe.ch/192567/

Aerosols and the related chemical processes can have a large influence on the radiative budget of the Earth and thus on climate. However, of all the factors affecting Earth’s radiative forcing, the influence of aerosols is the most difficult to quantify and is thus the one with the largest uncertainty. Chemical impurities trapped in polar ice can give information about past atmospheric aerosol composition and thus help in better understanding the interaction between aerosols and climate. In the course of the North Greenland Eemian (NEEM) ice drilling project a core with an approximate length of 2500 m covering the last 130 000 years was obtained and analysed in the field to determine its chemical impurity content using the portable Bern Continuous Flow Analysis (CFA) system. The main species to be analysed were sodium (Na+), calcium (Ca2+), ammonium (NH+4 ) and nitrate (NO–3). In addition, several firn cores were drilled and analysed in this thesis to gain information about the representativeness of these ...