ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-10-7505-2010 Measured black carbon deposition on the Sierra Nevada snow pack and implication for snow pack retreat Hadley O. L. 1 Corrigan C. E. 2 Kirchstetter T. W. 1 Cliff S. S. 3 Ramanathan V. 2 Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA Climate, Atmospheric Science, and Physical Oceanography Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, USA Department of Applied Science, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA 13 08 2010 10 15 7505 7513 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/7505/2010/acp-10-7505-2010.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/7505/2010/acp-10-7505-2010.pdf

Modeling studies show that the darkening of snow and ice by black carbon deposition is a major factor for the rapid disappearance of arctic sea ice, mountain glaciers and snow packs. This study provides one of the first direct measurements for the efficient removal of black carbon from the atmosphere by snow and its subsequent deposition to the snow packs of California. The early melting of the snow packs in the Sierras is one of the contributing factors to the severe water problems in California. BC concentrations in falling snow were measured at two mountain locations and in rain at a coastal site. All three stations reveal large BC concentrations in precipitation, ranging from 1.7 ng/g to 12.9 ng/g. The BC concentrations in the air after the snow fall were negligible suggesting an extremely efficient removal of BC by snow. The data suggest that below cloud scavenging, rather than ice nuclei, was the dominant source of BC in the snow. A five-year comparison of BC, dust, and total fine aerosol mass concentrations at multiple sites reveals that the measurements made at the sampling sites were representative of large scale deposition in the Sierra Nevada. The relative concentration of iron and calcium in the mountain aerosol indicates that one-quarter to one-third of the BC may have been transported from Asia.

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