Arctic sea ice melt leads to atmospheric new particle formation.

Sci Rep

Centre for Atmospheric Science Division of Environmental Health & Risk Management School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, United Kingdom.

Published: June 2017

Atmospheric new particle formation (NPF) and growth significantly influences climate by supplying new seeds for cloud condensation and brightness. Currently, there is a lack of understanding of whether and how marine biota emissions affect aerosol-cloud-climate interactions in the Arctic. Here, the aerosol population was categorised via cluster analysis of aerosol size distributions taken at Mt Zeppelin (Svalbard) during a 11 year record. The daily temporal occurrence of NPF events likely caused by nucleation in the polar marine boundary layer was quantified annually as 18%, with a peak of 51% during summer months. Air mass trajectory analysis and atmospheric nitrogen and sulphur tracers link these frequent nucleation events to biogenic precursors released by open water and melting sea ice regions. The occurrence of such events across a full decade was anti-correlated with sea ice extent. New particles originating from open water and open pack ice increased the cloud condensation nuclei concentration background by at least ca. 20%, supporting a marine biosphere-climate link through sea ice melt and low altitude clouds that may have contributed to accelerate Arctic warming. Our results prompt a better representation of biogenic aerosol sources in Arctic climate models.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5468288PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03328-1DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

sea ice
16
ice melt
8
atmospheric particle
8
particle formation
8
cloud condensation
8
open water
8
ice
5
arctic
4
arctic sea
4
melt leads
4

Similar Publications

Precession modulates the poleward expansion of atmospheric circulation to the Arctic Ocean.

Nat Commun

January 2025

Centre for Marine Magnetism (CM2, Department of Ocean Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China.

Under sustained global warming, Arctic climate is projected to become more responsive to changes in North Pacific meridional heat transport as a result of teleconnections between low and high latitudes, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we reconstruct subarctic humidity changes over the past 400 kyr to investigate the role of low-to-high latitude interactions in regulating Arctic hydroclimate. Our reconstruction is based on precipitation-driven sediment input variations in the Subarctic North Pacific (SANP), which reveal a strong precessional cycle in subarctic humidity under the relatively low eccentricity variations that dominated the past four glacial-interglacial cycles.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The fate of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is the largest cause of uncertainty in long-term sea-level projections. In the last interglacial (LIG) around 125,000 years ago, data suggest that sea level was several metres higher than today, and required a significant contribution from Antarctic ice loss, with WAIS usually implicated. Antarctica and the Southern Ocean were warmer than today, by amounts comparable to those expected by 2100 under moderate to high future warming scenarios.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ice core measurements reveal dipole-like snow accumulation trends over West Antarctica throughout the 20th century, with an increase of >2000 billion metric tons over the Antarctic Peninsula and Ellsworth Land but a decrease of ~500 billion metric tons over Marie Byrd Land. Although atmospheric teleconnections were frequently revealed, linking variability between tropics and higher latitudes on interannual and decadal timescales, centennial-scale teleconnection is absent from literature. Here, using statistical analysis and numerical experiments, we reveal that changes of tropical oceans throughout the 20th century drive the long-term Antarctic snowfall trend.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Impact of Siberian Wildfires on Ice-Nucleating Particle Concentrations over the Northwestern Pacific.

Environ Sci Technol

January 2025

Research Institute for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Yokohama, Kanagawa 236-0001, Japan.

Ice-nucleating particles (INPs) significantly influence aerosol-cloud precipitation interactions at regional and global scales. However, information regarding the concentrations and origins of INPs over the open ocean, particularly at high latitudes, remains insufficient due to access difficulties. In this study, we investigated the concentrations and origins of INPs over the western North Pacific to the Arctic Ocean through ship-borne observations conducted in the early autumn of 2016.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A nearly ubiquitous negative relationship between taxonomic richness and mean range-size (average area of taxa) is observed across space. However, the complexity of the mechanism limits its applicability for conservation or range prediction. We explore whether the relationship holds over time, and whether plant speciation, environmental heterogeneity, or plant interactions are major factors of the relationship within northeast Siberia and Alaska.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!