Spatial Distributions of Black Carbon and Mineral Dust in Air and Snow Surface Layers upon Svalbard Glaciers

In this project we aim at evaluating the distribution of Black Carbon (BC) and Mineral Dust (MD) in the atmospheric boundary layer over the snow surface and in the surface snow layers over targeted Svalbard glaciers and to identify the air-snow deposition mechanisms with particular attention to BC and MD. The study areas include Ny-Ålesund (NYA) and Hornsund (HOR), two sites with permanent infrastructures and long-term datasets available (snow and meteo). The field activities will exploit snowmobile platforms moving over glacier for spatial variability and tethered balloons systems (TBS) for vertical structure. TBS will be operated on glaciers at NYA and HOR (radiosoundings balloon tethered to the snowmobile) and only at NYA for sounding the full Arctic Boundary Layer, up to 2 km. Considering the importance of atmospheric transport in Arctic during winter season, for the first time wintertime measurements of BC and MD will be carried out at NYA both in atmosphere by TBS and in snow by sampling. Model simulations for atmospheric dynamics will be attempted in order to simulate the mesoscale meteorological fields in domains covering investigated glaciers and their surroundings and periods of measurement campaigns. The simulations may also support optimization of field campaigns (back trajectory forecasting) and output of the mesosclale model may serve as inputs for future development of locally applied models treating BC/Dust deposition on snow. A similar pilot study/approach has never been attempted before. The BC-3D project will address very relevant issues such as BC and MD deposition mechanisms and 3D spatial distribution over glaciers and in snow, a very relevant question when discussing climate change in the Arctic.