Spatial and temporal variations of refractory black carbon along the transect from Zhongshan Station to Dome A, eastern Antarctica

Changes in Refractory Black Carbon (rBC) Deposition to Coastal Eastern Antarctica During the Past Century

“…From mid‐1990s to 2015, a distinct increasing trend (cross correlation coefficient: r = 0.48, p < 0.01) characterized the variation of the rBC concentration in CA2016‐75 ice core, which also simultaneously recorded by NUS07‐1, NUS07‐7, NUS08‐4, WAIS, Law Dome, WD, B40, PIG, DIV, and SP‐C ice cores (Bisiaux, Edwards, McConnell, Albert, et al., 2012; Bisiaux, Edwards, McConnell, Curran, et al., 2012; X. Y. Ma et al., 2020). This marked increase of rBC could be associated with the emissions from human activities, including the fossil fuel consumption and deforestation and noting an increasing trend in wildfire occurrence affected by climate change in Australia and South America (Abram et al., 2021; Bisiaux, Edwards, McConnell, Curran, et al., 2012; Chen et al., 2017).…”

“…rBC was mainly originated from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, biofuels, and biomass (Kang et al., 2020) or were emitted during wildfires (Bisiaux, Edwards, McConnell, Albert, et al., 2012; Bisiaux, Edwards, McConnell, Curran, et al., 2012). Due to the extremely limited influences from local sources, it is virtually certain that rBC deposited in Antarctica has transported across the Southern Ocean from low‐to middle‐latitude source regions in a short duration (days to weeks) (Bond et al., 2013), so fundamentally variability in the ice core records reflects variability in rBC emissions, atmospheric transport, and deposition during transport and physical processes at the ice core site (Arienzo et al., 2017; Bisiaux, Edwards, McConnell, Albert, et al., 2012; de Laat et al., 2012; Marquetto et al., 2020; X. Y. Ma et al., 2020). Because of the relatively high accumulation at CA2016‐75 site and the hydrophobic chemical characteristic of black carbon, the post‐depositional effect on the variations of the rBC variations was negligible (Arienzo et al., 2017).…”

“…The previous work on rBC along the same transect (Zhongshan Station to Dome A, X. Y. Ma et al, 2020) showed that the mean rBC concentration in the coastal snowpit (SP-A, Figure 1) of 0.018 ng g −1 , the inland snowpit at Dome A (SP-C) of 0.021 and 0.017 ng g −1 for the rBC mean value in the surface snow samples along the Zhongshan Station to Dome A transect. These values were a little lower than that in CA2016-75 ice core but they were on the same order of magnitude.…”

“…The reproducibility of the instrument was also assessed by the RSD of repeated measurements, and the value was ∼11% for the samples used in this research. The SP2 analysis and calibration procedures followed the methods mentioned in Wang et al (2012), Lim et al (2014), Wendl et al (2014), Gao et al (2018) and Ma et al (2020), more detailed information can be got in these papers.…”

Spatial and temporal variations of fractionation of stable isotopes in East-Antarctic snow

“…According to the spatial variations of the accumulation rates and the impurities in snow (Ma and others, 2010; Ding and others, 2011; Xiao and others, 2013; Li and others, 2014, 2016; Shi and others, 2019; Ma and others, 2020), the ZSS-Dome A traverse can be divided the into three different sections, the coastal section (0–400 km), the intermediate section (400–900 km) and the interior section (900–1248 km). The mean slopes between δD and δ 18 O in the coastal, intermediate and interior sections are 8.18 ± 0.15 ( R 2 = 0.99, n = 30), 8.03 ± 0.09 ( R 2 = 0.99, n = 50) and 7.79 ± 0.10 ( R 2 = 0.99, n = 35), respectively.…”