- 1British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom of Great Britain – England, Scotland, Wales (xinyang55@bas.ac.uk)
- 2Exeter Climate Systems, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QF, UK
- 3College for Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Science, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QF, UK
- 4Research Center for Industries of the Future, Westlake University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
- 5Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
- 6Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
- 7Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- 8School of Geosciences, Global change/Oceans and past climate, University of Edinburgh, Wdingburgh, UK
- 93v Geomatics, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
- 10Air Quality Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Toronto, ON, Canada
- 11NOAA Earth System Research Laboratories, Global Monitoring Laboratory, Boulder, CO, USA
- 12Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanisms, Hefei Institutes of Physical Sciences, Hefei, China
- 13Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, Germany
Field evidence has confirmed a new sea salt aerosol (SSA) source on sea ice, which may significantly affect polar boundary layer chemistry and polar winter climate. While the SSA production rate from blowing snow has been previously parameterised (Yang et al., 2008) and then validated by measurements at both Poles, some key parameters involved are not yet fully constrained, leading to uncertainties when using numerical models to compare with field measurements and assess their environmental and climate impacts. In this presentation, we focus on two key parameters: blowing snow size distribution and snow salinity, which determine SSA production in number and size, respectively. We aim to constrain these factors using the latest field data, supported by remote sensing BrO data and modelling. Blowing snow particles typically follow a two-parameter gamma distribution function with shape factor (alpha) and scaling factor (beta) varying over a large range. However, our recent work focusing on the Arctic Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition data showed that at a given height, beta values increase with wind speeds, while alpha gradually approach a constant value of 1.9 at higher wind speeds (e.g. larger than 10 m/s). This is the first time that we derive such a relationship for blowing snow, which further affirms the aerosol production mechanism from blowing snow and helps elucidate the underlying processes involved. Accordingly, we parameterised the blowing snow particle size distribution as a function of wind speed, accounting for variable wind speeds during storms. In addition, supported by a chemistry transport model (p-TOMCAT), we examined the sensitivities of SSA mass and reactive bromine release rate (in association with the SSA production) to representative snow salinities derived from observations in the central Arctic and coastal regions (at Eureka, Canada). Mean winter/springtime snow salinities that best represent the Arctic were derived by comparing the modelled BrO with ground-based multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) and air-based satellite-based GOME-2 BrO data at Svalbard and Eureka.
How to cite: Yang, X., Ranjithkumar, A., Frey, M., Eliza Duncan, E., Partridge, D., Lachlan-Cope, T., Gong, X., Nishimura, K., Strong, K., Criscitiello, A., Santos-Garcia, M., Bognar, K., Zhao, X., Fogal, P., Walker, K., Morris, S., Li, Q., Luo, Y., Zilker, B., and Richter, A.: Using Arctic field data and remote sensing BrO data to constrain blowing snow sea salt aerosol production parameterizations, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10762, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10762, 2025.
