Identification

Title

Impacts of meteoric sulfur in the Earth's atmosphere

Abstract

A meteoric sulfur input function and a sulfur ion chemistry scheme have been incorporated into a chemistry-climate model, in order to study the speciation of sulfur between the stratosphere and the thermosphere (similar to 20-120 km) and the impact of the sulfur input from ablation of cosmic dust. The simulations have been compared to rocket observations of SO+ between 85 and 110 km, MIPAS observations of SO2 between 20 and 45 km, and stratospheric balloon-borne measurements of H2SO4 vapor and sulfate aerosol. These observations constrain the present-day global flux of meteoric sulfur to <= 1.0 t S d(-1), i.e., 2 orders of magnitude smaller than the flux of S into the stratosphere from OCS photooxidation and explosive volcanic SO2 injection. However, the meteoric sulfur flux is strongly focused into the polar vortices by the meridional circulation, and therefore, the contribution of SO2 of meteoric origin to the polar upper stratosphere during winter is substantial (similar to 30% at 50 km for a flux of 1.0 t S d(-1)). The Antarctic spring sulfate aerosol layer is found to be very sensitive to a moderate increase of the input rate of meteoric sulfur, showing a factor of 2 enhancement in total sulfate aerosol number density at 30 km for an input of 3.0 t S d(-1). The input rate estimate of 1.0 t S d(-1) suggests an enrichment of sodium relative to sulfur of 2.7 +/- 1.5 and is consistent with a total cosmic dust input rate of 44 t d(-1).

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7mk6gck

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2017-07-31T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact