April 2017

NEW HIGH LATITUDE DUST SOURCES AND PATHWAYS:

DUST IN ICELAND AND ANTARCTICA

PAVLA DAGSSON WALDHAUSEROVA

O. ARNALDS, H. OLAFSSON, O. MEINANDER, J-B RENARD,

J. HLADIL, L. CHADIMOVA, J. KAVAN, B. MORONI, AND MORE

WORKSHOP ON EFFECTS AND EXTREMES OF HIGH LATITUDE DUST

KELDNAHOLT, ICELAND, 13-14 FEB 2019

• HIGH LATITUDE DUST SOURCES (HLD)

• ICELAND AS A MAIN CONTRIBUTOR OF HLD AREAS

• LONG-RANGE TRANSPORT OF ICELANDIC DUST

• DUST IMPACTS ON OTHER EARTH SYSTEMS

• DUST STORMS IN THE ANTARCTIC PENINSULA IN 2018

• ICELANDIC AEROSOL AND DUST ASSOCIATION (ICEDUST) AND RELATED ACTIVITIES

OUTLINE

HIGH LATITUDE DUST AREAS

Ittoqqortoomiit, September 2018

Source: NASA Earth Observatory

images by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat

data from the U.S. Geological Survey

HIGH LATITUDE DUST AREAS – N EURASIA

ICELAND AND SOURCES OF AIR POLLUTION (PM)

• TOTAL ICELANDIC DESERT AREAS COVER OVER 44,000 KM2

• ICELAND IS THE LARGEST ARCTIC AS WELL AS EUROPEAN DESERT

•> 40 % OF ICELAND IS CLASSIFIED WITH CONSIDERABLE TO VERY SEVERE EROSION

WHAT MAKES ICELANDIC DUST SOURCES SO ACTIVE?

• FREQUENT VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS (+GLACIAL OUTBURST FLOODS “JÖKULHLAUP”)

• FREQUENT STRONG WINDS

Arnalds et al., 2016

volcanic sandy deserts (22% of Iceland)

glacial riverbeds and ice-proximal areas = “dust hot spots”

DESERT AREA with high erosion rates marked orange and red!

Source: GRID-Arendal, 2005. Barentswatch Atlas.

ICELAND – NATURAL OR ANTHROPOGENIC DESERT?

• 800 YEARS AGO: DESERT AREAS WERE VEGETATED AND AT LEAST 25% OF THE COUNTRY

WAS A FOREST

• 100 YEARS AGO: WOODLANDS WERE REDUCED DUE TO MEDIEVAL AGRICULTURAL METHODS

TO ALMOST TOTAL ELIMINATION

• COLD CLIMATE AND MASSIVE EROSION CAUSED A COLLAPSE TURNING VEGETATED

ECOSYSTEM INTO DESERT

TODAY

• ICELAND EXPERIENCES >130 DUST DAYS

• ANNUALLY AFFECTING THE AREA OF > 500,000 KM2

Rofabard (erosion escarpment) – relic of fertile soils

5 t km-2

500 t km-2

• TOTAL EMISSIONS: 30.5 TO 40.1 MILLION T

• TOTAL EMISSIONS: 4.3 ± 0.8 TG

HOW MUCH DUST IS EMITTED FROM ICELAND?

• Ocean deposition was on average 2.5

Tg or 58% of annually emitted dust

• Smaller fractions of emitted dust ended

up in Greenland (2 %) and Svalbard

• (< 0,1 %)

• About 7% of emitted dust is deposited in

the high Arctic (> 80° N)

• Europe deposition (3% of emitted dust)

LONG-RANGE TRANSPORT OF DUST

Where does the Icelandic dust travel?

Where do the air parcels travel from Iceland?

Here is a study from 1992-2012.

LEFT COLUMN – All forward trajectories from two

weather stations in Iceland

RIGHT COLUMN – Dust observation forward trajectories

from two weather stations in Iceland

Only SYNOP dust code 6 was used –

not really massive dust storms

LONG-RANGE TRANSPORT OF DUST

IS THERE ANY EVIDENCE THAT ICELANDIC DUST HAS REACHED SVALBARD OR EUROPE?

PM10 low and medium-

volume samplers in Ny-

Ålesund, Svalbard since

2011

The metal oxide particles as the most representative

mineralogical/phase markers for Iceland dust sources.

Magnetite-chromite and the magnetite-ülvospinel associations as marker

facies of the tholeiitic magmatic series and volcanic glass as a further

indicator of provenance from Iceland.

Faroe

Mace Head Ireland

Belgrade 2012-2013

REYKJAVÍK HAZE, SEPTEMBER 11, 2011

HVALFJÖRÐUR DUST, MARCH 24, 2012

DUST FRONT ABOVE HVERAGERÐI, JUNE 15, 2015

Some examples of

dust storms in Iceland

Sep 2011

AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY OF ICELAND

CAMERA MONITORING SYSTEM – 3 MOST ACTIVE DESERTS

DUST EVENT IMPACTS ON OTHER SYSTEMS

1. Extreme wind erosion event of

Eyjafjallajökull volcanic ash

September 14-15th, 2010

2. Snow-Dust Storm 3. Suspended dust during moist

and low wind conditions

August 12th, 2013

SHM, Report NI 13003, 2013.

Fe concentrations in mosses

Direct impacts of dust on other systems than cryosphere

Unique bird and volcanic dust datasets indicate

fertility associated with basaltic volcanic ash

© RAX

Dust storms in the Antarctic peninsula in 2018

AIR BORNE MEASUREMENTS WITH LOAC 2013/2016

(LIGHT OPTICAL AEROSOL COUNTER)

Mean (median) mass concentrations:

PM10 were 6.4 ± 1.4 (3.9 ± 1) μgm−3

PM2,5 were 3.1 ± 1 (2.3 ± 0.9) μgm−3

for the period January-March 2018

- No long term measurements for PM>1μm

- Patagonian dust detection

- Mission Ant. summer 2019 looks bad

- Get ready for mission 2020

Patagonia very active in dust production,

Tierra del Fuego

Can we see the Patagonian dust in our Antarctic data?

HTTPS://ICEDUSTBLOG.WORDPRESS.COM/

ICEDUST or HLD Workshops

CONCLUSIONS

• HIGH LATITUDE DUST AFFECTS LARGE AREAS – NEW SOURCES IDENTIFICATION

• ICELANDIC DUST CAN TRAVEL LONG DISTANCES (> 2,500 KM)

• HOURLY PM10 LEVELS IN ANTARCTICA CAN EXCEED 50 μgm−3

• WHAT IS THE SITUATION WITH DUST STORMS IN CENTRAL EUROPE?

Dust storms in Czech Republic in 2018 > 10 dust dayspavla@lbhi.is

Thank you for your attention!

pavla@lbhi.is

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