10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
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Arctic Aerosol Sources: Results of PMF on PM10 Collected at Ny Ålesund
GIULIA CALZOLAI, Silvia Nava, Massimo Chiari, Franco Lucarelli, Fabio Giardi, Silvia Becagli, Rita Traversi, Mirko Severi, Laura Caiazzo, David Cappelletti, Stefano Crocchianti, University of Florence and INFN Florence, Italy
Abstract Number: 1393 Working Group: Remote/Regional Atmospheric Aerosol
Abstract Ny Ålesund is located on a western fjord of Svalbard Islands, in the northernmost point influenced by the warm West Spitsbergen Current, and thus it is an ideal site for the study of the interaction between the climate change and the atmosphere, ocean and land variations. At the Gruvebadet laboratory, samplings are ongoing since 2010 in the period March to September; in particular, in this work we focus mainly on the results gained by the analysis of daily PM10 samples collected during the 2015 campaign.
Daily PM10 samples were analyzed for the ionic composition by Ion Chromatography (IC) and for metals and rare earth elements (REEs) by Inductively Coupled Plasma - Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES). Further, for the first time, daily samples collected in 2015 were analysed for the elemental composition by Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) analysis. PIXE is an almost unrivaled technique for the characterization of mineral dust, as it is sensitive to all the crustal elements (except O), including Si, which is usually not accurately quantifiable with other common chemical techniques.
Data on PM10 concentrations and speciation will be shown, for the year 2015 and in comparison with previous years. Further, preliminary data on the 2016 campaign will be also shown: in such year, a new sampling method was set up in order to enhance the sensitivity of the PIXE technique.
Source apportionment was performed by applying the Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) model. PMF allowed the identification and the quantification of the contributions to the aerosol burden of several sources such as sea salt, ammonia sulfate, biomass burning, mineral dust, nitrate, anthropic/arctic. Contributions vary in the range from few percent (e.g., biogenic emissions) to almost 50% for sea salt. The 2015 campaign was particularly interested by biomass burning transport episodes from Northern America.
The backward trajectories of air masses produced through HYSPLIT software were used to identify regional source areas for the identified PMF factors/sources. This analysis was used to strengthen the interpretation of each factor as a physical source as well as to gain further information on the aerosol long-range transports.
The logistic assistance of the Polar Support Unit of the CNR Department of Earth and Environment (POLARNET) is gratefully acknowledged.