Long-term monitoring of radionuclides transported through the atmosphere can aid in the understanding of atmospheric dynamics. The cosmogenic 10Be/7Be ratio is an effective atmospheric motion tracer.
However, high-resolution data acquisition is constrained because the 7Be-spectral counting method necessitates large sample sizes, and 10Be can only be measured using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS).
A research group from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Earth Environment (IEECAS) recently obtained the atmospheric 7Be and 10Be observational records with daily resolution for the entire year in Chengdu, a major city in China’s Sichuan Basin, using the 7Be-10Be-AMS analysis method.
On August 8, the study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
Based on this data, the researchers developed a preliminary long-term continuous tracer of stratospheric air intrusion in the Sichuan Basin by effectively removing the interference of approximately 22% of the annual average resuspended dust 10Be. They discovered that the intensity of stratospheric air intrusion was four times greater in spring and summer than in autumn and winter.
The rapid downward transmission of natural and anthropogenic trace chemicals in the stratosphere can be caused by local synoptic-scale stratospheric air intrusion.
Furthermore, the researchers used the accumulated observational data to assess the migration of atmospheric substances and their impact on the environment and climate during the Sichuan Basin stratospheric atmospheric air intrusion.
This study also showed that high-resolution 10Be/7Be can be used as a tracer for deep convective transport in the stratosphere. It also introduces a novel method for investigating the upper atmosphere source of surface atmospheric ozone.
