Temporally-Delineated Sources of Major Chemical Species in High Arctic Snow.

Long-range transport of aerosol from lower latitudes to the high Arctic may be a significant contributor to climate forcing in the Arctic. To identify the sources of key contaminants entering the Canadian high Arctic an intensive campaign of snow sampling was completed at Alert, Nunavut, from September 2014 to June 2015. Fresh snow samples collected every few days were analysed for black carbon, major ions, and metals, and this rich data provided an opportunity for a temporally-refined source apportionment of snow composition via Positive Matrix Factorization in conjunction with FLEXPART potential emission sensitivity analysis. Seven source factors were identified: sea salt, regional dust, Eurasian fossil fuel combustion, mixed carboxylic acid sources, nitrate processing, Eurasian industrial activities, and regional volcanic and marine biogenic activity. The majority (73 %) of the black carbon in snow, a light-absorbing compound critical to the Arctic radiative balance, was found to be the product of fossil fuel burning with limited biomass burning influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]