Friday, 7 June 2002: 11:30 AM
Investigation of chemical components in solid precipitation and environmental atmosphere at Ny-Aelesund
To investigate and verify the chemical components provided by long range transportation with
solid precipitation processes, some observations were carried out at Ny-Aelesund as a sufficient
remote area from sources by collections of solid precipitation particles, aerosol particles and gases.
Snow particles without riming were observed to contain less and more of SO42- and NO3-,
respectively, brought by northwesterly wind from arctic sea ice covering fields than those with
riming by southeasterly wind from open sea area in the north end of Gulf stream. It may be
remarked that these observational results are coincident with those of some laboratory experiments
and most recent observations of fresh snow and environmental atmosphere in polar regions.
Higher concentration of NO3- was observed in solid precipitation during a series of snowfall.
Concentrations of NO3- and H+ were observed to be almost equal. Therefore, it may be considered
that NO3- was taken into precipitation particles by means of diffusion process of gaseous HNO3.
At that duration over there, since there were complete polar nights, all chemical reactions may
be discussed without any photo-chemical processes.
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