Bioaerosols as indicators of central Arctic ice nucleating particle sources

Abstract. The Arctic is warming at a rapid rate, with implications for microbial communities as the ecosystems change. Some microbes and biogenic materials can affect the persistence of long-lived mixed-phase clouds by serving as ice nucleating particles (INPs). The presence of INPs modulates the cloud phase, and long-term measurements are important to elucidate their seasonal sources and to predict future change. The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition in 2019–2020 provided the first year-long measurements of bioaerosols and INPs in the central Arctic, with 3 d filters for amplicon sequencing and cumulative INP concentrations from −5 to −30 °C. Here, we investigated the INP seasonal cycle and its relation to the seasonal cycle of bacteria and eukaryotes. INPs were greatly elevated and compositionally similar in summer, aligning with a greater prevalence of local bioaerosol sources, but, despite this, a diverse mixture of sources (marine and terrestrial) was present all times. A common broader Arctic INP population is hypothesized for much of the year by comparable coincident data collected in Svalbard and a sensitivity of both the INPs and bioaerosols to large-scale events.