Figure 3
From: Alpine-ice record of bismuth pollution implies a major role of military use during World War II
Contribution of coal burning and various metallurgical processes leading to Bi pollution as recorded in CDD ice. (a) Bismuth consumption scaled by FLEXPART emission sensitivities of European countries contributing to deposition at CDD. (b) Fraction of Bi consumption used for metallurgy in the United States. (c) Summer ice-core trends of non-crustal Bi from which the pre-industrial value (0.27 pg g−1) was subtracted (red line), and deposition fluxes at CDD calculated by FLEXPART using estimated past anthropogenic emissions from coal burning (black line), coal burning plus Pb smelter (grey line) and coal burning plus Pb smelter and Bi use (blue solid line). The blue squares refer to deposition fluxes calculated by assuming changes over time of the amount of Bi emitted per tonne of Bi consumed (α values, see “Methods”) to account for emission reductions following technological improvements. The dashed blue line refers to emission scenario that considers only Bi use in metallurgy.
