Understanding atmospheric transport and removal processes is essential for interpreting the distribution of aerosols and trace species. Natural radionuclides such as Be-10, Be-7 and Pb-210 provide powerful atmospheric tracers because they have well-constrained sources, radioactive decay timescales, and distinct atmospheric transport pathways. Be-10 and Be-7 are produced by cosmic-ray interactions mainly in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, making them sensitive to stratosphere–troposphere exchange and large-scale atmospheric circulation. Pb-210, produced by the radioactive decay of Rn-222 and rapidly attached to aerosols, is widely used to study aerosol transport and removal. Ratios between these radionuclides provide additional constraints on atmospheric processes. The Be-10/Be-7 ratio is particularly useful for diagnosing atmospheric transport and source contributions because the two isotopes have similar production mechanisms but very different half-lives. The Be-7/Pb-210 ratio can help distinguish upper-atmospheric from surface-influenced air masses and provides additional information on vertical transport and aerosol residence times.
In this project, we will employ a suite of state-of-the-art global atmospheric chemistry and climate models, including ECHAM6.3-HAM2.3, ECHAM6.3-SALSA2.0 and GEOS-Chem to simulate the production, transport, and deposition of Be-10, Be-7 and Pb-210. Control simulations covering the past several decades will be conducted to reproduce their global distributions and deposition fluxes. Model results will be evaluated against available observational datasets to assess the representation of vertical transport, stratosphere–troposphere exchange, and aerosol removal processes in the models. Sensitivity experiments will further investigate the influence of meteorology, aerosol processes, and deposition parameterizations on the simulated radionuclide distributions. These simulations will provide an integrated framework for evaluating atmospheric transport processes and improving the reliability of global atmospheric chemistry and climate models.