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Chemical compositions of snow from Mt. Yulong, southeastern Tibetan Plateau

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Abstract

The snow and ice in Mt. Yulong offer a unique opportunity to investigate changes in climate and large scale atmospheric circulations over Asia. During February and April 2012, surface snow samples were collected from the Baishui Glacier No. 1 at different altitudes along the eastern slope of Mt. Yulong. Two snowpits were also excavated from Mt. Yulong at altitudes of 4780 and 4730 m a.s.l. in February 2012. The concentrations of inorganic ions were higher at an elevation of 4506 m a.s.l. in the glacier with significant contribution of anthropogenic (mainly NH\(_{4}^{\mathrm {+}}\), SO\(_{4}^{\mathrm {2-}}\), NO\(_{3}^{\mathrm {-}})\) and crustal (mainly Ca 2+) constituents. Concentration of HCOO − in surface snow exhibited large variability, ranging from 0.04 to 6.8 μeq L −1, attributed to dominant contribution from biomass burning emissions. Ion balance (ΔC) and Na +/Cl − calculations indicated an excess of cations (particularly higher Ca 2+ concentrations) and Cl − in snow, considering the sea-salt ratio, respectively. Monsoon season (June–September) ion concentrations in snowpit samples were generally two-fold lower than in other seasons. Principal component analysis was used to identify different sources of ions. Three main factors, accounting for more than 80% of the total variance, were related to different sources, including agricultural activities, biomass burning, and crustal aerosols.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Innovative Research Group National Natural Science Foundation of China (41121001) and Youth Talent Program of CAREERI (Y551C11001, Y451181001), CAS (KJZD-EW-G03-04), the Foundation from the State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences (05SS011201), and National Natural Science Foundation (41273010). We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and Prof. K Krishnamoorthy for their constructive comments which substantially improved the quality of the paper. We would also like to express our appreciation to Prof. Neng-Huei (George) Lin and Dr Robbie Hart for their constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science, Cold and Arid Regions Environment and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Hewen Niu, Yuanqing He, Shichang Kang & Shijin Wang

  2. Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Hewen Niu, Yuanqing He & Xiaoyi Shi

  3. CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Shichang Kang

  4. Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, 1 Arts Link, Singapore, 117570, Singapore

    Xixi Lu

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  1. Hewen Niu
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Correspondence to Shichang Kang.

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Niu, H., He, Y., Kang, S. et al. Chemical compositions of snow from Mt. Yulong, southeastern Tibetan Plateau. J Earth Syst Sci 125, 403–416 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-016-0670-5

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