Acidity-driven gas-particle partitioning of nitrate regulates its transport to Arctic through the industrial era.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 40389415.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-59208-0 and PMC identifier 12089609.
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Abstract
Anthropogenic NO<sub>x</sub> emissions have altered the biogeochemical nitrogen cycle since the Industrial Revolution, yet Arctic ice core nitrate (NO<sub>3</sub><sup>-</sup>) records are inconsistent with post-1970s NO<sub>x</sub> emission reductions. Here we show a NO<sub>3</sub><sup>-</sup> deposition history covering 1800-2020 using an ice core from the southeastern Greenland dome with high snow accumulation. The ice core NO<sub>3</sub><sup>-</sup> concentrations are particularly disconnected from NO<sub>x</sub> source regions during the peak pollution period and post-1990s. A global chemical transport model reproduced these discordances between total NO<sub>3</sub><sup>-</sup> and NO<sub>x</sub> emissions by altering gaseous HNO<sub>3</sub> and particulate NO<sub>3</sub><sup>-</sup> (p-NO<sub>3</sub><sup>-</sup>) ratios and subsequently NO<sub>3</sub><sup>-</sup> lifetime. This result and correlations with acidity parameters recorded in the ice core, suggest that acidity-driven gas-particle partitioning of NO<sub>3</sub><sup>-</sup> regulates its transport to Arctic regions alongside changes in NO<sub>x</sub> emissions. In the future, despite NO<sub>x</sub> reductions, the increase in proportion of p-NO<sub>3</sub><sup>-</sup> with longer atmospheric lifetime becomes crucial to control the Arctic NO<sub>3</sub><sup>-</sup> burden.