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Raimund Muscheler

Raimund Muscheler

Professor

Raimund Muscheler

Solar and meteorological influences on seasonal atmospheric 7Be in Europe for 1975 to 2018

Author

  • Minjie Zheng
  • Jesper Sjolte
  • Florian Adolphi
  • Ala Aldahan
  • Göran Possnert
  • Mousong Wu
  • Raimund Muscheler

Summary, in English

Assessing the transport of natural radionuclides in the atmosphere provides a powerful tool to study air mass circulation. Here, we investigated the seasonal atmospheric distribution of the naturally produced 7Be in surface air over Europe between 40° N and 68° N during the period 1975–2018. The results suggest that the inter-annual variability of 7Be reflects production rates of the radionuclide induced by solar modulation of cosmic rays. Further analysis of the meteorological influences indicates that the meteorological influences on 7Be concentrations are geographically and seasonally dependent. We found that, in general, the tropopause pressure plays an important factor influencing 7Be activity for winter and spring seasons while the sea level pressure and temperature are more dominant during summer and autumn seasons. The combination of tropospheric production rates and meteorological parameters explains 24%–79% variances of the seasonal 7Be activity. We further applied a three-box model to study the influence of stratosphere-troposphere exchanges on 7Be concentrations. The simulation supports that the seasonal cycle of 7Be in Europe is controlled by two main factors: the changing height of the troposphere (seasonality of the tropopause height) and seasonal variations of the stratosphere-troposphere exchanges.

Department/s

  • Quaternary Sciences
  • MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system

Publishing year

2021

Language

English

Publication/Series

Chemosphere

Volume

263

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences

Keywords

  • Beryllium-7
  • Meteorological influences
  • Solar modulation
  • Stepwise regression
  • Stratospheric intrusion
  • Three-box model

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0045-6535