The impact of fossil fuel burning related to scientific activities in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica: Revisited

Fossil fuel use associated with scientific activities in the Taylor Valley, Antarctic has been examined to determine the fluxes of particulate organic and elemental carbon and nitrogen as well as NOx for the 2015–2016 austral summer field season. These carbon and nitrogen fluxes are compared to our...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene
Main Authors: W. Berry Lyons, Elsa Saelens, Kathleen A. Welch
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: BioOne 2018
Subjects:
McMurdo Dry Valleys
management
fossil fuels
emissions
carbon dynamics
nitrogen
science activites
helicopter
envir
geo
Antarctic
Austral
Hoare
Lake Hoare
Taylor Valley
Antarc*
Antarctica
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.288
https://doaj.org/article/c11959814411422f89fcedce2a14511d
Description
Summary:Fossil fuel use associated with scientific activities in the Taylor Valley, Antarctic has been examined to determine the fluxes of particulate organic and elemental carbon and nitrogen as well as NOx for the 2015–2016 austral summer field season. These carbon and nitrogen fluxes are compared to our previously published calculations for the 1997–1998 austral summer. In addition, we compile fossil fuel usage and resulting C and N fluxes from the major field camp in Taylor Valley, Lake Hoare Camp (LHC) from the late 1990’s through 2017. In general, the annual fluxes do vary from year to year, but there is no significant trend, at least during the primary summer field season. There is indication that increasing the length of scientific operations does increase the C and N inputs via fossil fuel burning. This works supports our original results demonstrating that over long periods of time the anthropogenic flux of N from local fossil fuel burning could become quantitatively important in the region. Although the particulate C fluxes remain very low, the recent finding of black carbon in the Taylor Valley landscape indicates more on-going monitoring of the source of this material is merited.

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