Objective
The objective is to identify possible source regions and transport pathways for aerosols and reactive trace gases present in the polar atmosphere.
The data of the project contributes to elucidate the chemical and physical transformations, and transport of species occurring in the Antartic atmosphere. They also provide some information for a better understanding of the relationship between air concentrations and snow concentrations which is needed for an optimized exploitation of ice core data for assessing the chemical composition of the past atmosphere.
The work is focussed on biogenically important trace species derived from sulphur, nitrogen and carbon cycles. It is intended to sample primary aerosol(marine and terrestrial), secondary aerosol and also gaseous species including hydrogen nitrate, hydrogen chloride and sulphur dioxide. Simultaneous observations of seasonal variations in sulphur dioxide and methane sulphonic acid will provide valuable information concerning the chemical evolution of dimethyl sulphate(DMS), which is poorly understood at high latitudes. Possible contributions of nitrate from local potential source(ocean) or from long range transport of nitrogen compounds, produced at lower latitudes by lightning or biomass burning, can be elucidated.
Airborne measurements will be conducted on a quasi continuous basis during at least one year at 3 antarctic coastal stations namely, Halley Bay, Georg Von Neumayer and Dumont d'Urville.
Due to similar glaciometeorological conditions existing in coastal antarctic sites and in central Greenland, these atmospheric studies will be useful in the interpretation of glaciochemical data recovered from Greenland ice cores (eg Eurocore project).
Funding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
38402 Saint-martin-d'heres
France
Participants (3)
91198 Gif-sur-yvette
CB3 0ET Cambridge
69117 Heidelberg
