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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Dramatic Loss Of Glacier Accumulation Area On The Tibetan Plateau Revealed By Ice Core Tritium And Mercury Records, S. Kang, F. Wang, U. Morgenstern, Y. Zhang, B. Grigholm, Susan D. Kaspari, M. Schwikowski, J. Ren, T. Yao, D. Qin, P. A. Mayewski Jun 2015

Dramatic Loss Of Glacier Accumulation Area On The Tibetan Plateau Revealed By Ice Core Tritium And Mercury Records, S. Kang, F. Wang, U. Morgenstern, Y. Zhang, B. Grigholm, Susan D. Kaspari, M. Schwikowski, J. Ren, T. Yao, D. Qin, P. A. Mayewski

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Two ice cores were retrieved from high elevations (~5800 m a.s.l.) at Mt. Nyainqêntanglha and Mt. Geladaindong in the southern and central Tibetan Plateau region. The combined tracer analysis of tritium (3H), 210Pb and mercury, along with other chemical records, provided multiple lines of evidence supporting that the two coring sites had not received net ice accumulation since at least the 1950s and 1980s, respectively. These results implied an annual ice loss rate of more than several hundred millimeter water equivalent over the past 30–60 years. Both mass balance modeling at the sites and in situ data …


Twentieth Century Dust Lows And The Weakening Of The Westerly Winds Over The Tibetan Plateau, Bjorn Grigholm, P. A. Mayewski, S. Kang, Y. Zhang, U. Morgenstern, M. Schwikowski, Susan D. Kaspari, V. Aizen, E. Aizen, N. Takeuchi, K. A. Maasch, S. Birkel, M. Handley, S. Sneed Apr 2015

Twentieth Century Dust Lows And The Weakening Of The Westerly Winds Over The Tibetan Plateau, Bjorn Grigholm, P. A. Mayewski, S. Kang, Y. Zhang, U. Morgenstern, M. Schwikowski, Susan D. Kaspari, V. Aizen, E. Aizen, N. Takeuchi, K. A. Maasch, S. Birkel, M. Handley, S. Sneed

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Understanding past atmospheric dust variability is necessary to put modern atmospheric dust into historical context and assess the impacts of dust on the climate. In Asia, meteorological data of atmospheric dust is temporally limited, beginning only in the 1950s. High‐resolution ice cores provide the ideal archive for reconstructing preinstrumental atmospheric dust concentrations. Using a ~500 year (1477–1982 A.D.) annually resolved calcium (Ca) dust proxy from a Tibetan Plateau (TP) ice core, we demonstrate the lowest atmospheric dust concentrations in the past ~500 years during the latter twentieth century. Declines in late nineteenth to twentieth century Ca concentrations significantly correspond with …


Accelerated Glacier Melt On Snow Dome, Mount Olympus, Washington, Usa, Due To Deposition Of Black Carbon And Mineral Dust From Wildfire, Susan D. Kaspari, S. Mckenzie Skiles, Ian Delaney, Daniel Dixon, Thomas H. Painter Apr 2015

Accelerated Glacier Melt On Snow Dome, Mount Olympus, Washington, Usa, Due To Deposition Of Black Carbon And Mineral Dust From Wildfire, Susan D. Kaspari, S. Mckenzie Skiles, Ian Delaney, Daniel Dixon, Thomas H. Painter

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Assessing the potential for black carbon (BC) and dust deposition to reduce albedo and accelerate glacier melt is of interest in Washington because snow and glacier melt are an important source of water resources, and glaciers are retreating. In August 2012 on Snow Dome, Mount Olympus, Washington, we measured snow surface spectral albedo and collected surface snow samples and a 7 m ice core. The snow and ice samples were analyzed for iron (Fe, used as a dust proxy) via inductively coupled plasma sector field mass spectrometry, total impurity content gravimetrically, BC using a single-particle soot photometer (SP2), and charcoal …