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Iron content and solubility in dust from high-alpine snow along a north-south transect of High Asia Cover

Iron content and solubility in dust from high-alpine snow along a north-south transect of High Asia

Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology
Volume 64 (2012): Issue 1
By: ,  ,  ,   and    
Open Access
|Jan 2012
Figures & tables

Figures & Tables

Fig. 1. 

Location of sampling sites.

Fig. 2. 

The flowchart of experimental design in this study.

Table 1. The iron content and fractional solubility of Asian dust from different sites and dust types

Site and dust type Sample number Fe content (%) Fe solubility (%, arithmetic mean) pH References Dunde ice core, dust 16 3.38±0.50 Wu et al. (2009) Qiyi snow, dust 2 5.41±0.08 0.05 6.37 This study Lenglongling snow, dust 2 3.86±0.56 2.16 5.65 This study Qiangyong firn core, dust 42 3.91±0.90 1.18±1.12 (0.67 Geo. mean) 5.86±0.21 This study Tien Shan (UG1) snow, dust 25 4.97±0.70 0.25±0.18 (0.18 Geo. mean) 6.62±0.41 This study UCC 3.50 Taylor and McLennan (1995) Simulated Asian dust (CJ-2) 3.02±0.12 0.33 Nishikawa et al. (2000) and Ooki et al. (2009) TSP aerosol at Dunhuang 0.05–1.2 Chuang et al. (2005) and Duvall et al. (2008) Aerosol on East China Sea 0.2–1.5 Hsu et al. (2010) TSP aerosol at Gosan, Korea 0.1–3.4 Chuang et al. (2005) and Duvall et al. (2008) Bulk aerosol at Hokkaido 1.2–2.2 Ooki et al. (2009) North Pacific, aerosol 54 9±8 Buck et al. (2006) dust in GRIP ice core 40±20 Laj et al. (1997) Aerosol at Mt. Aba, Western India 8.1 (2.5–16.1), winter Kumar and Sarin (2010) Aerosol at Mt. Aba, Western India 1.6 (0.06–6.1), summer Kumar and Sarin (2010) Aerosol in Aqaba, Middle East 5 (0.5–19) Chen et al. (2006)
Fig. 3. 

The correlation between iron solubility and (a) Ca/Al ratio, (b) dust (using Al element) concentration and (c) particle grain size in Qiangyong (cycles) and Tien Shan samples (dots).

Fig. 4. 

The absolute dissolved iron concentrations at different pH and the relative increasing ratios (to step 1) in snow from Lenglongling (one sample, top) and Qiyi (two samples, bottom), Qilian Shan, Northern Tibetan Plateau (Experiment 2). Note that some particulate iron might also be measured as the dissolved one in those pre-filtered samples.

Table 2. The dissolved iron concentration (unit: ng g−1) after stepwise acidification

Lenglongling Qiyi sample 1 Qiyi sample 2 Step pH Dissolved Fe Step pH Dissolved Fe Step pH Dissolved Fe 1 5.57 1.1 1 5.93 9.4 1 3.62 62.5 2 4.52 0.9 2 5.85 32.9 2 3.08 116.5 3 3.47 2.4 3 4.28 70.5 3 2.35 257.5 4 3.13 5.5 4 3.53 98.9 4 2.04 387.6 5 2.45 8.3 5 3.17 130.3 5 1.34 607.3 6 2.12 4.8 6 2.42 293.5 6 1.03 755.1 7 1.47 6.0 7 2.12 385.2 7 0.05 1598.0 8 1.15 12.3 8 1.43 649.6 9 0.06 23.2 9 1.13 788.6 10 0.05 1308.0
Fig. 5. 

Comparison of iron concentrations of acidified and non-acidified UG1 (Tien Shan) (left) and Qiangyong (right) samples (Experiment 3). Alinsoluble and Fedissolved mean the insoluble aluminium mass (index of dust) and dissolved iron concentration in melted samples, respectively. DL means the detection limit. The seasonal variations in Qiangyong d18O and dust (Alinsoluble) concentration profiles favour the dating, which is indicated by vertical arrows and numbers.

Table 3. Statistics of the initial and acidified dissolved iron concentration (unit: ng g−1) and ratio between them for Qiangyong and UG1 samples

UG1 Fe dissolved (n=24) Qiangyong Fe dissolveda (n=36) Initial Acidified (pH=0.66) Ratio Initial Acidified (pH=0.66) Ratio Arithmetic mean 8.6 735.3 87 1.6 228.8 153 Geo. mean 6.2 412.3 67 1.2 90.4 74 Median 5.9 326.2 67 1.3 72.6 67 SD 8.3 1031.8 72 1.6 450.8 218 Minimum 1.1 53.6 19 0.2 18.2 14 Maximum 31.4 4726.6 616 8.6 2283.6 853

[i] aSome particulate iron might also be measured as the dissolved one for these pre-filtrated samples.

Fig. 6. 

Comparison of iron fractional solubility between acidified and non-acidified post-filtrate for the Qiangyong and UG1 (Tien Shan) samples.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusb.v64i0.17735 | Journal eISSN: 1600-0889
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Language: English
Page range: 17735 - 17735
Submitted on: Oct 25, 2011
Accepted on: Feb 8, 2012
Published on: Jan 1, 2012
Published by: Stockholm University Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Keywords:
Asian dust,
high-alpine snow,
iron content,
iron solubility

© 2012 Guangjian Wu, Chenglong Zhang, Zhongqin Li, Xuelei Zhang, Shaopeng Gao, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 64 (2012): Issue 1
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