Atmospheric aerosols from Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii

Conference · Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1993 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States)

OSTI ID:5765708

Zoller, W H; Holmes, J L ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Washington, Seattle (United States)

Atmospheric aerosols have been collected for chemical analysis at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii since 1979. The samples were collected in two wind quadrants, a clean [open quotes]down-slope[close quotes] quadrant and a more contaminated [open quotes]up-slope[close quotes] quadrant. Some of the findings of this work have been the identification of Asian dust traveling to the Hawaiian Islands every spring of the year, and this dust dominates the yearly record because it is very intense and contains predominantly crustal dust along with pollutants from the Asian mainland, such as coal combustion in China. Additional interpretation of the data set of weekly samples has shown the presence of pollutants from both North and South America as well as different areas of Asia that are transported by wind systems to the central Pacific Ocean. By subtracting these episodic transport events, one can look at the oceanic background aerosols that are originating from the ocean and look at the occurrence of the natural aerosol generating systems in the oceanic region that are related to climatic change. One of the important groups of elements are the sulfur and halogen families and the naturally occurring volatile elements (selenium, arsenic, antimony, etc.) that are produced by biogenic activity in the world's oceans and affect the chemistry of the atmosphere, particularly clouds in remote marine areas. Investigations such as this work allow one to evaluate the importance of natural versus anthropogenic sources of the volatile elements to the atmosphere, allowing us to have a much better understanding of man's impact on climate. The nuclear analytical techniques are particularly well suited to this type of sample because it consists of aerosols deposited on a clean Teflon or cellulose substrate, which normally offers very little interference with the analysis.

• OSTI ID: 5765708
• Report Number(s): CONF-930601-; CODEN: TANSAO
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States), Vol. 68; Conference: American Nuclear Society (ANS) annual meeting, San Diego, CA (United States), 20-24 Jun 1993; ISSN 0003-018X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AEROSOLS
NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS
HALOGENS
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
AIR-WATER INTERACTIONS
ANTIMONY
ARSENIC
CLIMATIC CHANGE
CLOUDS
HAWAII
ORIGIN
SEAS
SELENIUM
ACTIVATION ANALYSIS
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
COLLOIDS
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
DISPERSIONS
ELEMENTS
METALS
NONMETALS
NORTH AMERICA
SEMIMETALS
SOLS
SURFACE WATERS
USA
540110*
540120 - Environment
Atmospheric- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport- (1990-)
540310 - Environment
Aquatic- Basic Studies- (1990-)