Atmospheric Black Carbon Along A Cruise Path Through The Arctic Ocean During The5Th Chinese Arctic Research Expedition

Black carbon (BC) aerosol is a kind of amorphous carbon released to atmosphere by incomplete combustion emissions of fossil and biomass fuels. Black carbon in the atmosphere can influence earth-air energy balance system through absorb solar and atmospheric radiation, and thus affect climate. In the Arctic, black carbon aerosol can change the albedo of ice and snow surface after settled on snow and ice surface. So it can impact climate of Arctic more than middle and low latitude areas. Studies on black carbon aerosol currently were mainly about observation results and influence factors of black carbon. There were some studies working about black carbon’s radiative forcing. In the Arctic, observation of black carbon aerosol is mainly in the certain stations. And continuous observation over large spatial scale is few. So the spatial distribution of black carbon is unclear.From July2012to September2012, during the China fifth arctic expeditions, the concentrations of black carbon (BC) aerosols in the marine boundary layer were measured by an in-situ aethalometer. In this paper, the author analyzed the observation results, and did research on the distribution characters of black carbon aerosol. Main discussion includes:(1) The black carbon concentration of Offshore China and Sea of Japan were the highest during the route, while the result of Arctic was the minimum with the average concentration of5.96ng·m-3.(2) In the Arctic Ocean, the concentration of black carbon aerosol was relatively low. In addition to the significantly seasonal variations, there may be some zonal and meridional distribution regular pattern.(3) Compared with the black carbon aerosol concentration of3rd and4th CHINARE during2008and2010, black carbon aerosol concentration changed little in the Arctic Ocean. And there are significantly temporal and spatial distributions of it.(4) The relationship between black carbon aerosol and meteorological factors such as relative humidity and temperature is complex. Basically, it may be thought that meteorological factors aren’t the dominated influence on black carbon aerosol in sea area. (5) Concentration of black carbon aerosol was mainly affected by the terrigenous input. Variation of black carbon aerosol concentration in different areas was very large. Due to the effect of monsoon and the air-mass source in different period of time, the concentration of black carbon aerosol was different even for the same area.Black carbon aerosol observation and analysis in this paper was across a large range of space, especially in the Arctic Ocean. Because vessel sailed through the Northeast Passage for the first time during the5th CHINARE, data of black carbon concentration in strange area were collected. So we have chance to get better understanding of black carbon distribution in high latitude area.