J 2017

Relationships between Atmospheric Transport Regimes and PCB Concentrations in the Air at Zeppelin, Spitsbergen

UBL, Sandy, Martin SCHERINGER and Konrad HUNGERBUHLER

Basic information

Original name

Relationships between Atmospheric Transport Regimes and PCB Concentrations in the Air at Zeppelin, Spitsbergen

Authors

UBL, Sandy (756 Switzerland), Martin SCHERINGER (756 Switzerland, guarantor, belonging to the institution) and Konrad HUNGERBUHLER (756 Switzerland)

Edition

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, WASHINGTON, AMER CHEMICAL SOC, 2017, 0013-936X

Other information

Language

English

Type of outcome

Článek v odborném periodiku

Field of Study

10511 Environmental sciences

Country of publisher

United States of America

Confidentiality degree

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

References:

Impact factor

Impact factor: 6.653

RIV identification code

RIV/00216224:14310/17:00100152

Organization unit

Faculty of Science

UT WoS

000410255800040

Keywords in English

PERSISTENT ORGANIC POLLUTANTS; PARTICLE DISPERSION MODEL; POLYCHLORINATED-BIPHENYLS PCBS; HISTORICAL EMISSION INVENTORY; ARCTIC ATMOSPHERE; SOURCE REGIONS; PESTICIDES; CONGENERS; FLEXPART; TRACKING

Tags

Tags

International impact, Reviewed
Změněno: 11/4/2018 13:13, Ing. Nicole Zrilić

Abstract

V originále

Polychlorinated' biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent hazardous chemicals that are still detected in the atmosphere and other environmental media, although their production has been banned for several decades. At the long-term monitoring site, Zeppelin at Spitsbergen, different PCB congeners have been continuously measured for more than a decade. However, it is not clear what factors determine the seasonal and interannual variability of different (lighter versus heavier) PCB congeners. To investigate the influence of atmospheric transport patterns on PCB-28 and PCB-101 concentrations at Zeppelin, we applied the Lagrangian Particle Dispersion Model FLEXPART and calculated "footprints" that indicate the potential source regions of air arriving at Zeppelin. By means of a cluster analysis, we assigned groups of similar footprints to different transport regimes and analyzed the PCB concentrations according to the transport regimes. The concentrations of both PCB congeners are affected by the different transport regimes. For PCB-101, the origin of air masses from the European continent is primarily related to high concentrations; elevated PCB-101 concentrations in winter can be explained by the high frequency of this transport regime in winter, whereas PCB-101 concentrations are low when air is arriving from the oceans. For PCB-28, in contrast, concentrations are high during summer when air is mainly arriving from the oceans but low when air is arriving from the continents. The most likely explanation of this finding is that local emissions of PCB-28 mask the effect of long-range transport and determine the concentrations measured at Zeppelin.

Links

EF15_003/0000469, research and development project
Name: Cetocoen Plus
LM2015051, research and development project
Name: Centrum pro výzkum toxických látek v prostředí (Acronym: RECETOX RI)
Investor: Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the CR