Black carbon and organic carbon dataset over the Third Pole

[摘要] The Tibetan Plateau and its surroundings, also known asthe Third Pole, play an important role in the global and regional climateand hydrological cycle. Carbonaceous aerosols (CAs), including black carbon(BC) and organic carbon (OC), can directly or indirectly absorb and scattersolar radiation and change the energy balance on the Earth. CAs, along with theother atmospheric pollutants (e.g., mercury), can be frequently transportedover long distances into the inland Tibetan Plateau. During the last decades,a coordinated monitoring network and research program named “AtmosphericPollution and Cryospheric Changes” (APCC) has been gradually set up andcontinuously operated within the Third Pole regions to investigate thelinkage between atmospheric pollutants and cryospheric changes. This paperpresents a systematic dataset of BC, OC, water-soluble organic carbon(WSOC), and water-insoluble organic carbon (WIOC) from aerosols (20stations), glaciers (17 glaciers, including samples from surface snow and ice,snow pits, and 2 ice cores), snow cover (2 stations continuously observed and138 locations surveyed once), precipitation (6 stations), and lake sedimentcores (7 lakes) collected across the Third Pole, based on the APCC program.These data were created based on online (in situ) and laboratorymeasurements. High-resolution (daily scale) atmospheric-equivalent BCconcentrations were obtained by using an Aethalometer (AE-33) in the Mt.Everest (Qomolangma) region, which can provide new insight into themechanism of BC transportation over the Himalayas. Spatial distributions ofBC, OC, WSOC, and WIOC from aerosols, glaciers, snow cover, and precipitationindicated different features among the different regions of the Third Pole,which were mostly influenced by emission sources, transport pathways, anddeposition processes. Historical records of BC from ice cores and lakesediment cores revealed the strength of the impacts of human activity since theIndustrial Revolution. BC isotopes from glaciers and aerosols identified therelative contributions of biomass and fossil fuel combustion to BCdeposition on the Third Pole. Mass absorption cross sections of BC and WSOCfrom aerosol, glaciers, snow cover, and precipitation samples were alsoprovided. This updated dataset is released to the scientific communitiesfocusing on atmospheric science, cryospheric science, hydrology, climatology,and environmental science. The related datasets are presented in the form ofexcel files. BC and OC datasets over the Third Pole are available to download from the National Cryosphere Desert Data Center ( https://doi.org/10.12072/ncdc.NIEER.db0114.2021 ; Kang and Zhang, 2021).

[学科分类] 眼科学