International Research Fellowship Program: Carbonaceous Particle Concentrations Since the Pre-Industrial Era from Asian Ice Cores

Kaspari Susan D, Orono ME

Investigators

Abstract

0653933 Kaspari The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a twenty-four-month research fellowship by Dr. Susan D. Kaspari to work with Dr. Margit Schwikowski at Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland. Carbonaceous particles (CP) can significantly contribute to global warming; yet CP remain one of the largest sources of uncertainty in analyses of climate change during the industrial era. Due to the existence of only a few historical records of CP, studies assessing the role of CP in climate change used estimated inventories of CP concentrations based on wood and/or fossil fuel consumption data. However, many important CP sources such as residential emissions from cooking and heating are very difficult to estimate in the present, even more difficult to estimate for the past, and can vary greatly through time and with location. Thus, more quantitative measurements of CP emissions and atmospheric concentrations as a function of time are needed to estimate climate change related to CP forcing. This project will produce records of carbonaceous particle (CP) concentrations spanning pre-industrial to modern time from previously collected ice cores from three sites in the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau. Ice cores from mountain glaciers provide high-resolution archives of past atmospheric and environmental conditions, and preserve information about natural and anthropogenic atmospheric composition, and aerosol and contaminant transport and deposition. The ice cores are from sites that are strategically located to provide a history of CP emissions from Eurasia. CP deposition histories from this region are key to understanding the climatic impacts of CP, as the atmospheric composition in this region is heavily influenced by the largest sources of CP globally. The applicant and host will analyze the ice cores at high-resolution for black carbon (BC) via an optical method, and elemental carbon (EC) and organic carbon (OC) via a thermal method, and use the records to investigate the role of CP in regional and global climate change since pre-industrialization. To date Schwikowski and colleagues at PSI have produced the only historical ice core CP records spanning pre-industrial to modern times.