Tracing biomass burning aerosol from South America to Troll Research Station, Antarctica

The atmospheric observatory at the Norwegian Research Station Troll in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, holds, since February 2007, the first all-year Antarctic atmospheric aerosol particle number size distribution measurements. These are colocated with measurements of the aerosol absorption and spectra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: Fiebig, Markus, Lunder, Chris Rene, Stohl, Andreas
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2982492
https://doi.org/10.1029/2009GL038531
Description
Summary:The atmospheric observatory at the Norwegian Research Station Troll in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, holds, since February 2007, the first all-year Antarctic atmospheric aerosol particle number size distribution measurements. These are colocated with measurements of the aerosol absorption and spectral scattering coefficients. In June 2007, this instrument set observed an aerosol whose properties were indicative of a biomass burning aerosol. These properties included two log-normal size distribution modes with median particle diameters of 0.105 μm and 0.36 μm, sharply falling off to smaller and larger sizes, and peaks in scattering and absorption coefficient. With backward plume calculations of the Lagrangian transport model FLEXPART and the MODIS fire activity product, a source-receptor relationship was established between biomass burning events in Central Brazil and the aerosol seen at Troll. This is the first direct evidence that the Antarctic continent is susceptible to emissions from as far north as Southern tropical latitudes. publishedVersion