Comparing the analytical methods to measure aeolian mineral dust in polar snow

Abstract

Aeolian mineral dust plays an important role in the climate system as well as in terrestrial and marine ecosystems. The dust input influences the direct and indirect radiative forcing processes and provides nutrients. The atmospheric mineral dust deposited on polar ice sheets through the long-range atmospheric transport and deposition processes. The aerosol dust mainly composed of insoluble mineral particles, which are measured the concentration and size distribution using two different methods: the coulter counting and the laser sensor counting technique. Here we compared the coulter counter and the laser sensor counter to measure insoluble microparticles in the snow collected from northwest Greenland (72°26'N, 51°03'W). The coulter counter analysis use Multisizer™3 with a 50 μm orifice (Beakman Coulter). The particle measuring system based on lase detection is Syringe® with LDS23/25bs (Markus Klotz GmbH). The methods correlations of dust concentration with the concentrations od major ions and trace metals were also investigated.