Multiphase Snow Chemistry

snow Chem

This experimental and modelling research investigates the chemical reactivity of the porous and dynamic snowpack. We are interested in learning where impurities in snow are located and how trace gases are transported through the porous snow during their exchange with the atmosphere.  

A central question is thus to investigate the reactivity of solutes embedded at different locations in snow and how changes in these locations, for example, during snow metamorphism, affect reactivity. Another dynamic process we currently examine is freezing, to understand better the incorporation of solutes into freezing cloud droplets or their release to the gas phase upon freezing. Francesca is currently working on the fate of NH3 in freezing clouds. Open questions on trace gas transport through snow remain, and we address these on the one hand by investigating the importance of various uptake mechanisms, such as adsorption or diffusion to grain boundaries in laboratory studies. More recently, we have started to work with the University of California Los Angeles to use their atmospheric coupled transport-chemistry model to address trace gas transport and chemistry in the field and the laboratory. 

 

 

  • Swiss National Science Foundation 210264
  • Swiss National Science Foundation  155999
  • Kuhn J, Stutz J, Bartels-Rausch T, Thomas JL, Cesler-Maloney M, Simpson WR, et al.
    The interplay between snow and polluted air masses in cold urban environments
    Faraday Discussions. 2025; 258: 502-520. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4fd00176a
    DORA PSI
  • Hong AC, Ulrich T, Thomson ES, Trachsel J, Riche F, Murphy JG, et al.
    Uptake of hydrogen peroxide from the gas phase to grain boundaries: a source in snow and ice
    Environmental Science and Technology. 2023; 57(31): 11626-11633. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c01457
    DORA PSI
  • Edebeli J, Trachsel JC, Avak SE, Ammann M, Schneebeli M, Eichler A, et al.
    Snow heterogeneous reactivity of bromide with ozone lost during snow metamorphism
    Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 2020; 20(21): 13443-13454. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-13443-2020
    DORA PSI
  • Edebeli J, Ammann M, Bartels-Rausch T
    Microphysics of the aqueous bulk counters the water activity driven rate acceleration of bromide oxidation by ozone from 289–245 K
    Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts. 2019; 21(1): 63-73. https://doi.org/10.1039/C8EM00417J
    DORA PSI