Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 2549–2578, 2020 https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2549-2020 © Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. First direct observation of sea salt aerosol production from blowing snow above sea ice Markus M. Frey1, Sarah J. Norris2, Ian M. Brooks2, Philip S. Anderson3, Kouichi Nishimura4, Xin Yang1, Anna E. Jones1, Michelle G. Nerentorp Mastromonaco5, David H. Jones1,a, and Eric W. Wolff6 1Natural Environment Research Council, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK 2School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK 3Scottish Association for Marine Science, Oban, UK 4Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan 5IVL Swedish Environmental Institute, Stockholm, Sweden 6Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK anow at: Neptec, UK Ltd., Oxford, UK Correspondence: Markus M. Frey (
[email protected]) Received: 18 March 2019 – Discussion started: 3 April 2019 Revised: 8 January 2020 – Accepted: 21 January 2020 – Published: 2 March 2020 Abstract. Two consecutive cruises in the Weddell Sea, crease in aerosol concentrations with wind speed was much Antarctica, in winter 2013 provided the first direct obser- larger above sea ice than above the open ocean, highlighting vations of sea salt aerosol (SSA) production from blowing the importance of a sea ice source in winter and early spring snow above sea ice, thereby validating a model hypothesis to for the aerosol burden above sea ice. Comparison of absolute account for winter time SSA maxima in the Antarctic. Blow- increases in aerosol concentrations during storms suggests ing or drifting snow often leads to increases in SSA during that to a first order corresponding aerosol fluxes above sea and after storms.