Measurements and data processing of atmospheric

IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science

PAPER • OPEN ACCESS

Measurements and data processing of atmospheric CO2, CH4, H2O and δ13CCH4 mixing ratio during the ship campaign in the East Arctic and the Far East seas in autumn 2016 To cite this article: N Pankratova et al 2019 IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 231 012041

View the article online for updates and enhancements.

This content was downloaded from IP address 181.215.83.168 on 12/02/2019 at 17:33

Turbulence, Atmosphere and Climate Dynamics IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 231 (2019) 012041

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/231/1/012041

Measurements and data processing of atmospheric СО2, СН4, Н2О and δ13CСН4 mixing ratio during the ship campaign in the East Arctic and the Far East seas in autumn 2016 N Pankratova1, I Belikov1, A Skorokhod1, V Belousov1, A Artamonov1, I Repina1,2 and E Shishov1 1

A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics RAS, Moscow, 119017, Russia. Lomonosov Moscow State University

2

E-mail: [email protected] Abstract. Here we present the results of measurements of the atmospheric methane concentration and its isotope composition (δ13CCH4) in the East Arctic and Far East Seas during the cruise in the autumn 2016 by two different types of analyzers. Open path LI-7700 and LI7500 analyzers measuring correspondingly methane (CH4), and carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (H2O) have high time resolution (10Hz) that allow to fix instantaneous values of gas concentration. We obtained high CH4 concentration (more than 8 ppm) at the location of methane bubbles yields from sea water to atmospheric air. However, due to contamination and icing of the mirrors of these analyzers, significant part of data was rejected for analysis. The data sets of contact gas analyzer G2132-i shows good reliability but the peaks of CH4 concentration obtained by G2132-i are lower (up to 3.7 ppm) and longer due to instrument's slower responding time. For 10-min averaging, data sets of both CH4 analyzers gives good agreement, the differences between two types measurements of methane values are less then analyzers' accuracy.

1. Introduction Subsea permafrost and hydrates in the Eastern Arctic seas shelf are significant methane pool and potentially can be large source of atmospheric methane emissions [1]. By now a lot of localized seeps of methane in East Arctic seas have been found [2, 3], but the quality of the obtained experimental data is currently insufficient to reliable estimate CH4 emissions into the atmospheric air, which are still very poorly quantified [1, 4, 5]. Satellite measurements of the concentration covering the entire globe, but do not have sufficient accuracy [6]. Arctic CH4 source can be identified by isotopic signature [7-10], but measurements of δ13CCH4 are even rarer. Thus, it is very important to expand the experimental studies and analyze new full-scale data on methane concentrations in the Arctic. Atmospheric carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane mixing ratios and changes in the 13C:12C ratio in CH4 (reported a changes relative to a reference ratio and denoted as δ 13CCH4) were measured during ship campaign from 23 September to 3 November 2016 in the Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi Seas and as well as in the North Pacific and in the Sea of Japan. In this study we pay attention to the methodological aspects of received results.

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd 1



2. Measurements and methods The measurements were made from aboard the research vessel (R/V) "Akademik M.A. Lavrentiev" (78th cruise). The R/V route started from the Tiksi port and gone through the East Arctic seas: the Laptev and East Siberian seas, than through the Chukchi, Bering and Japan seas to the Vladivostok port. Route map is shown at Figure 1. An automated measuring complex was used for direct observations of surface air composition. It included the following instruments: 1) Cavity-Ring-Down Spectrometer (CRDS) produced by Picarro Inc., USA (model G2132-i) to measure concentrations of methane, carbon dioxide, water vapor and isotopic signature; 2) methane concentration analyzer with an open optical path, model LI-7700, produced by Li-Cor Inc., USA; 3) carbon dioxide and water vapor concentrations analyzer with an open optical path, model LI7500, produced by Li-Cor Inc., USA. Target parameters of measuring system, including time resolution are presented in Table 1. According to this table, the concentrations of methane and carbon dioxide as well as content of water vapor were measured synchronously by two analyzers. As it will be shown below, this significantly improved the quality and reliability of the data sets.

Figure 1. Route of 78th cruise of R/V "Akademik M.A. Lavrentiev" with dates (dd.mm) of the R/V locations along the ship's trajectory. The core of the G2132-i is Picarro’s unique Cavity Ring Down Spectroscopy (CRDS) technique, a time-based measurement that uses a laser to quantify spectral features of gas phase molecules in a

2



small optical cavity, which has an effective laser path length of up to 20 kilometers. Characteristics of G2132-i are shown in Table 2. Table 1. Used analyzers and measured parameters. # 1 2 3

Time Analyzers resolution, sec G2132-i >30 LI-7700 0.1 LI-7500 0.1

δ13CCH4

CH4

CO2

H2O

●

● ●

●

●

●

AtmospheAir ric pressure temperature ● ●

●

● ●

Table 2. G2132-i characteristics for HP (High Precision) mode #

Performance Specifications

δ13CCH4

CH4

CO2

H2O

1

Dynamic Range

-

1.8-12 ppm

200-2000 ppm

0-2.4 % guaranteed range

2

Precision