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Wet deposition of precipitation chemistry during 2005–2009 at a remote site (Nam Co Station) in central Tibetan Plateau

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Abstract

Chemical compositions of precipitation samples collected from a remote and high elevation site (Nam Co Station, 30°46.44′N, 90°59.31′E, 4730 m a.s.l.) in central Tibetan Plateau (TP, hereafter) from August 2005 to August 2009 are investigated. During the study period, Ca2+ and HCO -3 have the highest concentrations among ions and are the dominant cation and anion in precipitation, taking 27.46 % and 30.84 % to the total ions respectively. Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOFs) analyses reveal that crustal aerosol inputs significantly contributed to the loading of Ca2+, Mg2+, SO 2-4 and HCO -3 in precipitation, while lake salt plays a major source of K+ and Cl-. Seasonal variations of ionic wet deposition fluxes show high values during monsoon seasons due to large precipitation amount. Among the cations, annual Ca2+ flux is the largest (86.26 eq hm−2), Na+ and NH +4 fluxes are following. Among anions, HCO -3 has the highest flux (98.66 eq hm−2) while that of NO -3 is the lowest. Annual wet deposition of nitrogen has varied considerably with the average value of 0.70 kg ha−1 a−1 at Nam Co Station. About 80 % of total nitrogen flux occurs during the monsoon seasons when precipitation is concentrated, in which NH +4 and NO -3 contributed to 61 % and 39 % of the total nitrogen deposition. Thus, our ionic concentrations and wet deposition fluxes in precipitation can provide a useful dataset to assess atmospheric environment and its impacts on ecosystem in the inland TP.

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Acknowledgements

This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40830743), the Global Change Research Program of China (2010CB951401), and the State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences (SKLCS2011-06, SKLCSZZ-2008-01). We would also like to sincerely thank You Q. for the revision, Qu D. and Shi Y. for conducting chemical analysis. The samples were collected by the staff of Nam Co Station for Multisphere Observation and Research, CAS, and we are grateful for their hard field work.

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  1. Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Yulan Zhang, Shichang Kang, Chaoliu Li, Zhiyuan Cong & Qianggong Zhang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Shichang Kang

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  1. Yulan Zhang
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  2. Shichang Kang
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  4. Zhiyuan Cong
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Correspondence to Shichang Kang.

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Zhang, Y., Kang, S., Li, C. et al. Wet deposition of precipitation chemistry during 2005–2009 at a remote site (Nam Co Station) in central Tibetan Plateau. J Atmos Chem 69, 187–200 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10874-012-9236-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10874-012-9236-3

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