Iodine atmospheric concentration, significant increase in the last 50 years

In the picture of Andrea Spolaor: basal ice, 584 meters deep, about 120 thousand years old

Geochemical analyses performed in an ice core retrieved in the Renland peninsula (eastern Greenland) highlight a rapid increase in atmospheric iodine levels linked to human-driven raise in tropospheric ozone and recent Arctic sea-ice retreat.

These results have been published on the journal Nature Communications by an international team of scientists including Andrea Spolaor, from the Institute for the Dynamics of Environmental Processes (Idpa-Cnr) and Carlo Barbante, director of the Cnr Institute and professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

“Through a multidisciplinary research study performed in an ice core retrieved in the Greenland, the scientists were able to reconstruct and explain atmospheric iodine levels since 1760, highlighting how the concentrations were relatively stable until the mid-20th century but have tripled since 1950”, Spolaor and Barbante explained. “Thanks to atmospheric models including atmospheric and chemical processes we understood that the increase in ozone concentrations in the so-called “Great Acceleration” (the increasing human impact on the environment after the second world war) and the recent abrupt sea-ice decrease are the main causes of iodine concentration increase in the North Atlantic. The increase in atmospheric concentrations have many implications since it promotes ultrafine aerosol formation and is involved in the ozone cycle with a direct impact on the Earth’s energy budget”.