Osman Matthew B.

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Last Name
Osman
First Name
Matthew B.
ORCID
0000-0002-5636-698X

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Real-time analysis of insoluble particles in glacial ice using single-particle mass spectrometry

2017-11-21 , Osman, Matthew B. , Zawadowicz, Maria , Das, Sarah B. , Cziczo, Daniel J.

Insoluble aerosol particles trapped in glacial ice provide insight into past climates, but analysis requires information on climatically relevant particle properties, such as size, abundance, and internal mixing. We present a new analytical method using a time-of-flight single-particle mass spectrometer (SPMS) to determine the composition and size of insoluble particles in glacial ice over an aerodynamic size range of  ∼  0.2–3.0 µm diameter. Using samples from two Greenland ice cores, we developed a procedure to nebulize insoluble particles suspended in melted ice, evaporate condensed liquid from those particles, and transport them to the SPMS for analysis. We further determined size-dependent extraction and instrument transmission efficiencies to investigate the feasibility of determining particle-class-specific mass concentrations. We find SPMS can be used to provide constraints on the aerodynamic size, composition, and relative abundance of most insoluble particulate classes in ice core samples. We describe the importance of post-aqueous processing to particles, a process which occurs due to nebulization of aerosols from an aqueous suspension of originally soluble and insoluble aerosol components. This study represents an initial attempt to use SPMS as an emerging technique for the study of insoluble particulates in ice cores.

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Methanesulfonic acid (MSA) migration in polar ice : data synthesis and theory

2017-11-03 , Osman, Matthew B. , Das, Sarah B. , Marchal, Olivier , Evans, Matthew J.

Methanesulfonic acid (MSA; CH3SO3H) in polar ice is a unique proxy of marine primary productivity, synoptic atmospheric transport, and regional sea-ice behavior. However, MSA can be mobile within the firn and ice matrix, a post-depositional process that is well known but poorly understood and documented, leading to uncertainties in the integrity of the MSA paleoclimatic signal. Here, we use a compilation of 22 ice core MSA records from Greenland and Antarctica and a model of soluble impurity transport in order to comprehensively investigate the vertical migration of MSA from summer layers, where MSA is originally deposited, to adjacent winter layers in polar ice. We find that the shallowest depth of MSA migration in our compilation varies over a wide range (∼ 2 to 400 m) and is positively correlated with snow accumulation rate and negatively correlated with ice concentration of Na+ (typically the most abundant marine cation). Although the considered soluble impurity transport model provides a useful mechanistic framework for studying MSA migration, it remains limited by inadequate constraints on key physico-chemical parameters – most notably, the diffusion coefficient of MSA in cold ice (DMS). We derive a simplified version of the model, which includes DMS as the sole parameter, in order to illuminate aspects of the migration process. Using this model, we show that the progressive phase alignment of MSA and Na+ concentration peaks observed along a high-resolution West Antarctic core is most consistent with 10−12 m2 s−1 < DMS < 10−11 m2 s−1, which is 1 order of magnitude greater than the DMS values previously estimated from laboratory studies. More generally, our data synthesis and model results suggest that (i) MSA migration may be fairly ubiquitous, particularly at coastal and (or) high-accumulation regions across Greenland and Antarctica; and (ii) can significantly change annual and multiyear MSA concentration averages. Thus, in most cases, caution should be exercised when interpreting polar ice core MSA records, although records that have undergone severe migration could still be useful for inferring decadal and lower-frequency climate variability.

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