Geolocating Russian sources for Arctic black carbon

Highlights

• We analyzed multiple years of ambient black carbon and particulate data collected in the Arctic.

• We resolved Russian black carbon source contribution season-by-season.

• We identified scattered source regions of biomass burning (including forest fire), oil combustion, and coal power plants.

• Aerosol markers were used to help identify black carbon sources in Russia.

Abstract

To design and implement an effective emission control strategy for black carbon (BC), the locations and strength of BC sources must be identified. Lack of accurate source information from the Russian Federation has created difficulty for a range of research and policy activities in the Arctic because Russia occupies the largest landmass in the Arctic Circle. A project was initiated to resolve emission sources of BC in the Russian Federation by using the Potential Source Contribution Function (PSCF). It used atmospheric BC data from two Arctic sampling stations at Alert Nunavut, Canada, and Tiksi Bay, Russia. The geographical regions of BC emission sources in Russia were identified and summarized as follows: (1) a region surrounding Moscow, (2) regions in Eurasia stretching along the Ural Mountains from the White Sea to the Black Sea, and (3) a number of scattered areas from western Siberia to the Russian Far East. Particulate potassium ions, non-marine sulfate, and vanadium were used to assist in resolving the source types: forest fire/biomass burning, coal-fired power plant, and oil combustion. Correlating these maps with the BC map helped to resolve source regions of BC emissions and connect them to their corresponding source types. The results imply that a region south of Moscow and another north of the Ural Mountains could be significant BC sources, but none of the grid cells in these regions could be linked to forest fires, oil combustion, or coal-fired power plants based on these three markers.

Introduction

Black carbon (BC) has been identified in remote pristine polar regions such as the Arctic (Koch and Hansen, 2005) and Antarctic (Hansen et al., 1988). Recent studies also highlight Russia and Siberia as the major source regions of BC in the Arctic (Hirdman et al., 2010, Nguyen et al., 2013, Wang et al., 2011). Deposition of BC on snow and ice is widely considered to have a climate warming effect by reducing the surface albedo and promoting snowmelt (Quinn et al., 2007). Such positive climate feedbacks in the Arctic are problematic because rising surface temperatures may trigger the release of large Arctic stores of terrestrial carbon, further amplifying current warming trends. Increases in surface temperature may intensify releases of toxic pollutants as well, such as the neurotoxic mercury (Hg) species, which has been deposited and accumulated over the past several decades (Amos et al., 2013).

Anthropogenic BC emissions result from incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, such as in power plants that burn coal, oil, and natural gas; on-road transportation vehicles; off-road utility vehicles; aircraft and ships that use petroleum and diesel; residential cookstoves; industrial activities; and agricultural biomass burning. BC is a component of Arctic haze, a topic that has received great attention since the 1960s (Barrie et al., 1967, Shaw, 1995) because of the vulnerability of the Arctic ecosystem and its location strategic to international boundaries and trade. Quinn et al. (2007) summarized the latest trends in Arctic pollution and identified the knowledge gaps. Reduction of BC is an effective control strategy not only for protection of human health but also for mitigation of near-term climatic change (Shindell, 2012).

Koch and Hansen (2005) suggest that the predominant sources of Arctic soot are industry, biofuel emissions, and biomass burning in South Asia. They estimate BC emitted in these regions is readily lofted to high altitudes, from which it may be transported to the Arctic. According to their model, Russia, Europe, and South Asia each contribute about 20–25% of the BC associated with the low-altitude springtime “Arctic haze.” Gong et al. (2010) suggests that the relative contribution to BC measured at Alert from Eurasia has generally decreased since 1980s from 90 to 75%; but during the same time, the contribution from North America emissions has increased from less than 10%–25%. Other studies also identify Eurasia as a major source of contaminants in the Arctic (Eleftheriadis et al., 2009, Sharma et al., 2006, Sharma et al., 2004, Hegg et al., 2009).

Occupying a significant fraction of the land located within the Arctic Circle and actively exploring natural resources there, Russia has the potential to become a significant contributor of BC emissions to the northern polar ecosystems. However, data quantifying BC emission sources for Russia are limited. The commonly used global emissions database, the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), was found likely to significantly underestimate Russian BC emissions (Huang et al., 2013). Furthermore, emissions data from the Russian Federation have not conformed to the standards and terminology used for environmental data commonly taken in other parts of the world, making it difficult to build a Russian national emissions database to augment EDGAR, for instance.

In light of the difficulties in acquiring inventory estimates of Russian BC emissions, we resolved BC emissions in Russia using a reverse engineering model called “Receptor-Oriented Models” or “Receptor Models.” The approach is by no means the optimal approach for acquiring source data, but it does not require detailed knowledge of the Russian sources and their particular geographical locations a priori. The objective of this paper is to report the results of a source–receptor relationship study to identify the geographic locations of BC emission sources in Russia.