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McConnell JR, Chellman NJ, Wensman SM, Plach A, Stanish C, Santibáñez PA, Brugger SO, Eckhardt S, Freitag J, Kipfstuhl S, Stohl A. Hemispheric-scale heavy metal pollution from South American and Australian mining and metallurgy during the Common Era. Sci Total Environ 2024; 912:169431. [PMID: 38142989 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169431] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2023] [Revised: 12/13/2023] [Accepted: 12/14/2023] [Indexed: 12/26/2023]
Abstract
Records from polar and alpine ice reflect past changes in background and industrial toxic heavy metal emissions. While Northern Hemisphere records have been used to evaluate environmental effects and linkages to historical events such as foreign conquests, plagues, economic downturns, and technological developments during the past three millennia, little is known about the magnitude and environmental effects of such emissions in the Southern Hemisphere or their historical linkages, especially prior to late 19th century industrialization. Here we used detailed measurements of the toxic heavy metals lead, cadmium, and thallium, as well as non-toxic bismuth, cerium, and sulfur in an array of five East Antarctic ice cores to investigate hemispheric-scale pollution during the Common Era. While thallium showed no anthropogenic increases, the other three metals increased by orders of magnitude in recent centuries after accounting for crustal and volcanic components. These first detailed records indicate that East Antarctic lead pollution started in the 13th century coincident with Late Intermediate Period metallurgy in the Andes and was pervasive during the Spanish Colonial period in parallel with large-scale exploitation of Andean silver and other ore deposits. Lead isotopic variations suggest that 19th-century increases in lead, cadmium, and bismuth resulted from Australian lead and Bolivian tin mining emissions, with 20th century pollution largely the result of the latter. As in the Northern Hemisphere, variations in heavy metal pollution coincided with plagues, cultural and technological developments, as well as global economic and political events including the Great Depression and the World Wars. Estimated atmospheric heavy metal emissions from Spanish Colonial-era mining and smelting during the late 16th and early 17th century were comparable to estimated European emissions during the 1st-century apex of the Roman Empire, with atmospheric model simulations suggesting hemispheric-scale toxic heavy metal pollution during the past five centuries as a result.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph R McConnell
- Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV 89512, USA.
| | - Nathan J Chellman
- Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV 89512, USA
| | - Sophia M Wensman
- Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV 89512, USA
| | - Andreas Plach
- Department of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
| | - Charles Stanish
- Institute for the Advanced Study of Culture and the Environment, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA
| | - Pamela A Santibáñez
- Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV 89512, USA
| | - Sandra O Brugger
- Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV 89512, USA
| | - Sabine Eckhardt
- Norwegian Institute for Air Research, N-2027 Kjeller, Norway
| | - Johannes Freitag
- Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, 27570 Bremerhaven, Germany
| | - Sepp Kipfstuhl
- Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, 27570 Bremerhaven, Germany
| | - Andreas Stohl
- Department of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
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Eckhardt S, Pisso I, Evangeliou N, Zwaaftink CG, Plach A, McConnell JR, Sigl M, Ruppel M, Zdanowicz C, Lim S, Chellman N, Opel T, Meyer H, Steffensen JP, Schwikowski M, Stohl A. Revised historical Northern Hemisphere black carbon emissions based on inverse modeling of ice core records. Nat Commun 2023; 14:271. [PMID: 36650124 PMCID: PMC9845213 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35660-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/06/2022] [Accepted: 12/15/2022] [Indexed: 01/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Black carbon emitted by incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass has a net warming effect in the atmosphere and reduces the albedo when deposited on ice and snow; accurate knowledge of past emissions is essential to quantify and model associated global climate forcing. Although bottom-up inventories provide historical Black Carbon emission estimates that are widely used in Earth System Models, they are poorly constrained by observations prior to the late 20th century. Here we use an objective inversion technique based on detailed atmospheric transport and deposition modeling to reconstruct 1850 to 2000 emissions from thirteen Northern Hemisphere ice-core records. We find substantial discrepancies between reconstructed Black Carbon emissions and existing bottom-up inventories which do not fully capture the complex spatial-temporal emission patterns. Our findings imply changes to existing historical Black Carbon radiative forcing estimates are necessary, with potential implications for observation-constrained climate sensitivity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sabine Eckhardt
- NILU - Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, Norway.
| | - Ignacio Pisso
- NILU - Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, Norway
| | | | | | - Andreas Plach
- Department of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Joseph R McConnell
- Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV, 89512, USA
| | - Michael Sigl
- Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, 3012, Bern, Switzerland.,Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, 3012, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Meri Ruppel
- Atmospheric Composition Unit, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland.,Ecosystems and Environment Research Programme, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | | | - Saehee Lim
- Department of Environmental Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, 34134, South Korea
| | - Nathan Chellman
- Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV, 89512, USA
| | - Thomas Opel
- Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Hanno Meyer
- Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam, Germany
| | | | | | - Andreas Stohl
- Department of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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