A hybrid receptor model that combines both chemical and meteorological information was employed to identify the potential regions of source emission for aerosol measured at Alert, Northwest Territories (82.3°N, 62.5°W) in the Canadian Arctic. This model explores the use of 5-day air parcel backward trajectories to describe the long-range transport of atmospheric heavy metals and sulfate species through the potential source contribution function (PSCF) receptor model. The modeling results presented are for the observations made between November 1 and March 20 from 1982 to 1987, i.e., the Arctic winter, since concentrations of trace elements are generally higher in the winter. A number of geographical locations in the former USSR and Europe are found to be of high potential to be the emission source areas. The usefulness of using elemental ratios in the PSCF analysis for identifying source regions contributing to the pollution in the Arctic was explored.

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