Modeling the contribution of leads to sea spray aerosol in the high Arctic

• Main Authors: Lapere, Rémy, Marelle, Louis, Rampal, Pierre, Brodeau, Laurent, Melsheimer, Christian, Spreen, Gunnar, Thomas, Jennie, L
• Other Authors: Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (IGE), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble (Fédération OSUG)-Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA), TROPO - LATMOS, Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (LATMOS), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Datlas Grenoble, Institut für Umweltphysik Bremen (IUP), Universität Bremen
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2024
• Subjects: [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Merra; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://insu.hal.science/insu-04571804; https://insu.hal.science/insu-04571804v1/document; https://insu.hal.science/insu-04571804v1/file/egusphere-2024-1271_ACP.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1271

International audience Elongated open water areas in sea ice (leads) release sea spray particles to the atmosphere. However, there is limited knowledge on the amount, properties and drivers of sea spray emitted from leads, and no existing parameterization of this process is available for use in models. In this work, we use measurements of aerosol fluxes from Nilsson et al. (2001) to produce an estimate of the location, timing and amount of sea spray emissions from leads at the scale of the Arctic Ocean for one year. Lead fractions are derived using sea ice data sets from numerical models and satellite detection. The proposed parameterization estimates that leads account for 0.3 %–3 % of the annual sea salt aerosol number emissions in the high Arctic. Assuming similar size distribution as emissions from the open ocean, leads account for 30 %–85 % of mass emissions in sea ice regions. The total annual mass of sea salt emitted from leads, 0.1–1.9 Tg yr-1, is comparable to the mass of sea salt aerosol transported above sea ice from the open ocean, according to the MERRA-2 reanalysis. In addition to providing the first estimates of possible upper and lower bounds of sea spray emissions from leads, the conceptual model developed in this work is implemented and tested in the regional atmospheric chemistry model WRF-Chem. Given the estimates obtained in this work, the impact of sea spray from leads on Arctic clouds and radiative budget needs to be further explored.