- 1Atmospheric Research and Instrumentation Branch, National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA), Torrejón de Ardoz, Spain (pradosrc@inta.es)
- 2Atmospheric Sounding Station – El Arenosillo, National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA), Huelva, Spain.
- 3Dirección Nacional del Antártico (DNA)/Instituto Antártico Argentino (IAA), San Martín Prov. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Sea ice plays a crucial role in atmospheric chemistry. In the polar regions, particularly during spring, large amounts of bromine migrate from reservoir state in sea ice to gas phase (Br2, BrCl) and subsequently to reactive bromine (Br, BrO). This involves autocatalytic processes which deplete surface ozone and oxidizes toxic mercury, facilitating its entry into the trophic chain.
During the last years, in collaboration with the Argentinian Antarctic Directorate/Argentine Antarctic Institute, INTA has been performing long-term observations of relevant tropospheric trace gases aiming at characterizing the polar photochemistry and its link to environmental conditions. These observations are performed from Ushuaia (USH, 54˚S, 68˚S) co-operating with SMN (Argentine National Meteorological Service), and from the Antarctic sites of Marambio (MAR, 64˚S, 56˚W) and Belgrano (BEL, 78˚S, 34˚W). One of the main objectives of the current nationally funded research project GARDENIA (Gases and aerosols in Antarctica: distribution, context and variability) is to investigate the role that sea ice plays on tropospheric halogens in Antarctica.
The work presented herein focuses on a long-term (2015-2022) study of reactive bromine in the context of the sea ice surrounding the Weddell Sea sector. This will be assessed by combining long-term observations of tropospheric BrO from the Antarctic sites of MAR and BEL, with back trajectories computed using the HYSPLIT model (Stein et al., 2015) and the sea ice state of development facilitated by the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC, 2020). This pluriannual study suggests that not only sea ice extent but also sea ice state of development should be further investigated in the framework of cryosphere-atmosphere interactions in a context of global warming.
References:
Stein et al., (2015): NOAA’s HYSPLIT atmospheric transport and dispersion modeling system. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 96, 2059–2077.
NSIDC (2020): U.S. National Ice Center Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Concentration and Climatologies in Gridded Format. (G10033, Version 1). Fetterer, F. & Stewart, J. S. (Comps.).
How to cite: Prados-Roman, C., Gómez-Martín, L., Puentedura, O., Adame, J. A., Navarro-Comas, M., Ochoa, H., and Yela, M.: Tropospheric BrO and sea ice in the surroundings of the Weddell Sea (Antarctica), EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-5747, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-5747, 2025.
