Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) and its surroundings, known as the Third Pole, play an important role in the regional and global climate and hydrological cycle. Carbonaceous aerosols (CAs), including black carbon (BC) and organic carbon (OC), can directly/indirectly absorb and scatter solar radiation, and change the energy balance on Earth. CAs, along with other atmospheric pollutants (e.g., mercury), can frequently be transported over long distances into the inland TP. During the last decade, a coordinated monitoring network and research program on Atmospheric Pollution and Cryospheric Change (APCC) has been gradually setup and continuously operated within the Third Pole regions to investigate the linkage between atmospheric pollutants and cryospheric change. This paper presents a systematic dataset of BC, OC, water soluble organic carbon (WSOC), and water insoluble organic carbon (WIOC) from aerosols (19 stations), glaciers (17 glaciers, including samples from surface snow/ice, snowpit, and two ice cores), snow cover (2 stations continuous observed, and 138 sites surveyed), precipitation (6 stations), and lake sediment cores (7 lakes) collected across the TP and its surroundings, as the first dataset released from this APCC program. These data were created based on online (in-situ) and laboratory measurements. High-resolution (daily scale) atmospheric equivalent BC (eBC) concentrations were obtained by using an aethalometer (AE-33) in the Mt. Everest (Qomolangma) region, which can provide a new insight into the mechanism of BC transportation over the Himalayas. Spatial distributions of BC, OC, WSOC and WIOC from aerosols, glaciers, snow cover, and precipitation indicated different features among the different regions of the TP, which were mostly influenced by emission sources, transport, and deposition processes. Several hundred years of refractory BC (rBC) records from ice cores and BC from lake sediment cores revealed the strength of human activities since the industrial revolution. BC isotopes from glaciers and aerosols identified the relative contributions of biomass and fossil fuel combustion to BC deposition on the Himalayas and TP. Mass absorption cross section of BC and WSOC from aerosol, glaciers, snow cover, and precipitation samples were also provided. This updated dataset is released to the scientific communities focusing on atmospheric science, cryospheric science, hydrology, climatology and environmental science. The related datasets are presented in the form of excel files. These files are available to download from the State Key Laboratory of Cryosphere Sciences, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences at Lanzhou (https://doi.org/10.12072/ncdc.NIEER.db0114.2021, Kang and Zhang, 2021). In the future, datasets of mercury, heavy metals, and POPs will be reported.

Highlights

  • With high elevations, the Tibetan Plateau (TP), known as the Third Pole, plays an important role in 65 the earth’s climate through its complex topography (Yao et al, 2019)

  • This paper presents a systematic dataset of black carbon (BC), OC, water soluble organic carbon (WSOC), and water insoluble organic carbon (WIOC) from aerosols (19 stations), glaciers (17 glaciers, including samples from surface snow/ice, snowpit, and two ice cores), snow cover (2 stations continuous observed, and 138 sites surveyed), precipitation (6 stations), and lake sediment cores (7 lakes) collected across the TP and its surroundings, as the first dataset released from this APCC program

  • 115 and provide access to the systematic dataset of BC and OC from the atmosphere, glaciers, snow cover, precipitation, and lake sediment cores over the TP and its surroundings based on the APCC program

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Summary

Introduction

With high elevations (average > 4000 m a.s.l.), the Tibetan Plateau (TP), known as the Third Pole, plays an important role in 65 the earth’s climate through its complex topography (Yao et al, 2019). Studies on atmospheric carbonaceous components (e.g., black carbon, BC; organic carbon, OC) have gained wide attention, due to the fact that they can directly (or indirectly) absorb or scatter solar radiation at the surface, alternately interact with the nucleation of clouds, and influence the precipitation efficiency (Bond et al, 2013; IPCC, 2013; Ji et al, 2016; Ramanathan et al, 2005; Ramanathan and Carmichael, 2008; Ramachandran et al, 2020; Yang et al, 2020) These 80 carbonaceous aerosols (CAs) have influenced the climate and environmental changes on Earth (Kang et al, 2020; Li et al, 2017a; Xu et al, 2012; Chen et al, 2019b; Zhang et al, 2017a; Zhang et al, 2012).

Research site descriptions
Stations for the aerosol and precipitation studies
Glaciers
Snow cover sites
Sediment cores from the lakes
Atmospheric aerosol and precipitation sampling
Glacier, snow cover and ice core sampling
Lake sediment core sampling
Real-time atmospheric BC using an Aethalometer
Atmospheric aerosol EC and OC methods and data
Mass absorption cross section (MAC) of aerosol EC and WSOC from atmospheric aerosols
BC and WIOC from glaciers and snow cover
WSOC methods and data from precipitation
BC from lake sediment cores
Findings
Conclusions
Full Text
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