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Whole air drawn from four heights within the high elevation (3,340 m asl), deep, winter snowpack at Niwot Ridge, Colorado, were sampled into stainless steel canisters, and subsequently analyzed by gas chromatography for 51 volatile inorganic and organic gases. Two adjacent plots with similar snow cover were sampled, one over bare soil and a second one from within a snow-filled chamber where Tedlar/Teflon-film covered the ground and isolated it from the soil. This comparison allowed for studying effects from processes in the snowpack itself versus soil influences on the gas concentrations and fluxes within and through the snowpack. Samples were also collected from ambient air above the snow surface for comparison with the snowpack air. Analyzed gas species were found to exhibit three different kinds of behavior: (1) One group of gases, i.e., carbon dioxide (CO₂), chloroform (CHCl₃), dimethylsulfide (CH₃)₂S, carbondisulfide (CS₂), and dichlorobromomethane (CHBrCl₂), displayed higher concentrations inside the snow, indicating a formation of these species and release into the atmosphere. (2) A second group of compounds, including carbon monoxide (CO), carbonyl sulfide (COS), the hydrocarbons methane, ethane, ethyne, benzene, and the halogenated compounds methylchloride (CH₃Cl), methylbromide (CH₃Br), dibromomethane (CH₂Br₂), bromoform (CHBr₃), tetrachloromethane (CCl₄), CFC-11, CFC-12, HCFC-22, CFC-113, 1,2-dichloroethane, methylchloroform, HCFC-141b, and HCFC-142b, were found at lower concentrations in the snow, indicating that the snow and/or soil constitute a sink for these gases. (3) For 21 other gases absolute concentrations, respectively concentration gradients, were too low to unequivocally identify their uptake or release behavior. For gases listed in the first two groups, concentration gradients were incorporated into a snowpack gas diffusion model to derive preliminary estimates of fluxes at the snow-atmosphere interface. The snowpack gradient flux technique was found to offer a highly sensitive method for the study of these surface gas exchanges. Microbial activities below this deep, winter snowpack appear to be the driving mechanism behind these gas sources and sinks. Flux results were applied to a simple box model to assess the potential contribution of the snowpack uptake rates to atmospheric lifetimes of these species.

Photochemical rate constants (j values) are crucial indicators for evaluating the importance of photochemical reactions in environmental systems. While measurement of aqueous j values via chemical actinometry is relatively straightforward under most conditions, problems arise with ambient conditions below freezing, such as at very high latitudes or altitudes. To address this problem, we have developed a new method for low temperature actinometry using solutions of acetonitrile (ACN) and water, which have freezing points down to . In this method we measure the formation of phenol from the photolysis of an-generating chromophore in the presence of benzene. Using results from laboratory tests we correct our phenol field results in to rate constants for chromophore photolysis expected for water–ice (i.e., in the quasi-liquid layer of snow grains) under the same conditions. In part 1 of this study, we use this method at Summit, Greenland on the surface snow and to depths of using hydrogen peroxide (HOOH) and nitrite as the chromophores. While the method works well for determining the rate constant for HOOH photolysis (j(HOOH)), we encountered problems using the technique with nitrite. However, measured PhOH formation rate constants for nitrite in acetonitrile, , still provide an excellent means for calculating snowpack-folding depths for photolysis (i.e., the depth over which the rate constant decreases by a factor of ). Values of j(HOOH) and determined from measurements of actinic flux (above the snow) and irradiance (in snow) suggest that the value of j(HOOH) on the surface snow at midday was in mid-March and increased by 300% by the start of May, while midday surface values were consistently throughout the season. Within the snowpack, average-folding depths determined from chemical actinometry were for j(HOOH) and for ;-folding depths determined from in-snow spectral radiometer measurements of irradiance were similar. The larger-folding depth for nitrite is because this chromophore absorbs at longer wavelengths where there is less light extinction in the snow. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We present data collected from a number of snow-covered environments including two polar locations (Summit, Greenland and the South Pole) and two mid-latitude regions (a remote site in northern Michigan, and Niwot Ridge, Colorado). At each site, concentrations of and were enhanced within the interstitial air near the snow surface, compared to levels in boundary layer air. Fluxes of from surface snow to the atmosphere were observed at each site except Niwot Ridge, where appeared to have a sink. The mid-latitude sites showed significant emissions of , mostly originating at the ground surface and traveling up through the snow, while at the polar locations emissions from firn air were relatively small. In general, methyl halide mixing ratios in firn air were significantly greater at Summit than at the South Pole, with Summit showing a strong diurnal cycle in the production of alkyl halides that was well correlated with actinic radiation and firn temperature. We suggest that the most likely route to alkyl halide formation is through an acid catalyzed nucleophilic substitution of an alcohol type function by a halide, both of which should be preferentially segregated to the quasi-liquid layer at the surface of the snow grains. A series of experiments using a snow-filled quartz chamber irradiated by natural sunlight allowed estimation of emission trends that were hard to measure in the natural snowpack. These static chamber experiments confirmed significant production of the primary alkyl halides, following the order . Our observations at all four locations, including polar and mid-latitude sites, imply that alkyl halide production may be associated with all surface snows. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]