The composition and sources of airborne bacteria and proteinaceous Ice Nucleating Particles in the High Arctic marine region during Spring

The Arctic is a particularly vulnerable region on Earth, where climate change takes place at an intense pace. Clouds represent an essential element within the Arctic atmosphere and play a crucial role in the regional radiative balance. The physical properties of clouds are tightly interlinked with the presence of aerosols that can serve as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and as ice nucleating particles (INPs), which facilitate the formation of cloud droplets and ice crystals, respectively. Consequently, they affect cloud thickness, lifetime, and albedo.

More studies propose that various biological aerosols e.g., aerosolized microbial cells, proteinaceous compounds and fragments actively contribute to cloud processes serving as INPs active at high subzero temperatures (>-15°C). However, our understanding of microorganisms responsible for producing compounds serving as INPs, their source environments, and their level of activity, remains highly uncertain.

Given the profound impact of climate change in the Arctic region, understanding the role of biological INPs in the atmosphere becomes particularly critical during Arctic melt season. Here, we present an overview of bioaerosol observations and sources tracking from the recent Arctic expedition ”Atmospheric rivers and the onset of Arctic melt” (ARTofMELT 2023).

Biological INPs are thought to originate from the ocean and meltwater sources during the Arctic Spring and Summer. To assess the potential contribution of these sources to INP active aerosols, aerosols were generated from bulk seawater and sea ice melt water with a temperature-controlled sea spray simulation chamber. The presence of microorganisms in the bulk water and aerosol was quantified using flow cytometry and qPCR while the composition of the microbial communities was determined by amplicon sequencing. Additionally, fluorescent bioaerosols generated by the chamber were  analyzed using a Multiparameter Bioaerosol Spectrometer (MBS). Simultaneously, ambient air samples were analyzed for the presence of microbial cells, bioaerosols, and the composition of the collected microbial community. The ice nucleating properties of water, sea ice melt, and aerosols from the chamber and ambient aerosol were also measured to determine their relevance for Arctic cloud formation.

Preliminary results from the ambient measurements revealed low concentrations of airborne bacterial cells and highly active INPs. From the sea spray simulations, we found that ice melt, snow melt and seawater samples generated a high flux of bacterial cells which were accompanied by INPs active predominantly at low freezing temperatures (<-15°C). Therefore, it seems that the local sea spray is not a likely source of proteinaceous INPs detected in the Arctic spring atmosphere, which will be further explored through bacterial community analysis. Our results will thus provide comprehensive insights into the contribution of local and long-range transported sources of bioaerosols to the Arctic.