Global Atmospheric 7Be and 210Pb: Air Concentration and Deposition Flux

A global dataset compiles air concentration and deposition flux measurements for the naturally occurring radionuclides Beryllium-7 and Lead-210, collected from published literature between 1955 and early 2020. It includes annual surface air concentration data from 367 sites for 7Be and 270 sites for 210Pb, and annual deposition flux from 279 sites for 7Be and 602 sites for 210Pb. Metadata likely includes geographic location, sampling date, methodology, annual precipitation, and calculated ratios and deposition velocities.

Use Cases

• Modeling global aerosol transport and deposition based on site-specific concentration and flux measurements.
• Calibrating sedimentation rates and soil erosion studies using the 7Be/210Pb ratio data.
• Investigating atmospheric circulation patterns by analyzing the spatial and temporal distribution of tracer concentrations.
• Studying the scavenging efficiency of precipitation on aerosols using concurrent flux and precipitation metadata.

Strengths

• Global spatial coverage with data from hundreds of unique sampling sites (e.g., 602 sites for 210Pb flux).
• Long temporal coverage, aggregating measurements from studies published over a 65-year period (1955-2020).
• Includes derived metrics such as 7Be/210Pb ratios and calculated aerosol deposition velocities.

Limitations

• Key structural metadata like specific column names, row counts, and file size are not provided in the sources.
• The 'last updated' date is unknown, so the dataset's freshness relative to 2020 is unclear.
• Data is a synthesis from disparate published studies, which may introduce methodological inconsistencies.

Provenance

Source

Fule Zhang, East China Normal University

Collection Method

Compilation from a large number of published research papers.

Time Range

1955 to early 2020

Geography

Global