Soluble species in aerosol and snow and their relationship at Glacier 1, Tien Shan, China

Simultaneous sampling of aerosol (n = 20) and snow (n = 114) was made at Glacier 1, Tien Shan, between May 19 and June 29, 1996. Similar temporal patterns of some major ion (calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, chloride, and sulfate) concentrations between snow and aerosol show that snow chemistry basically reflects changes in the chemistry of the atmosphere. This gives us confidence in the reconstruction of past atmospheric change using some snow data. There are no significant correlations between aerosol and snow samples for ammonium and nitrate. This suggests that post-depositional and/or post-collection processes may alter ammonium and nitrate concentrations in snow. The fact that the measured cations in aerosol and snow always exceed the measured anions suggests that the atmosphere is alkaline over Glacier 1, Tien Shan. In aerosol and snow samples, calcium is the dominant cationic species, with sulfate and presumed carbonate being the dominant anions. There is a very good inverse relationship (r = 0.96) between the equivalence ratio of calcium to sulfate and the ratio of ammonium to sulfate in aerosols, but this relationship does not hold for snow. This further suggests that post depositional and/or post collection processes exert important controls on ammonium concentrations in snow. Although melt-freeze cycles might increase the concentration of all crustal species through progressive dissolution of dust, these cycles seem most important for magnesium and carbonate