Preferential elution of strong acids from a Norwegian ice cap

The release of strong acids by melting snows during the early thaw has a serious effect on the ecology of many sensitive areas of the world ^1-3. The run off is a product of both the input (wet and dry deposition) and of processes occurring within the snow-pack and the firn during the melt season. Temperate glacial ice is very pure⁴, having lost most of its annual input of original solutes during each melt season, and the analyses reported here of the ionic concentrations in the snow, firn and ice of the top 20 m of an ice cap, indicate that the ions are eluted differentially and in a manner which initially accentuates the loss of sulphuric and nitric acid. Almost all the annual deposits of ions on a glacier or ice cap may be lost during a single year. © 1982 Nature Publishing Group.