Local Arctic Air Pollution: A Neglected but Serious Problem

Abstract

Air pollution in the Arctic caused by local emission sources is a challenge that is important but often overlooked. Local Arctic air pollution can be severe and significantly exceed air quality standards, impairing public health and affecting ecosystems. Specifically in the wintertime, pollution can accumulate under inversion layers. However, neither the contributing emission sources are well identified and quantified nor the relevant atmospheric mechanisms forming pollution are well understood. In the summer, boreal forest fires cause high levels of atmospheric pollution. Despite the often high exposure to air pollution, there are neither specific epidemiological nor toxicological health impact studies in the Arctic. Hence, effects on the local population are difficult to estimate at present. Socioeconomic development of the Arctic is already occurring and expected to be significant in the future. Arctic destination shipping is likely to increase with the development of natural resource extraction, and tourism might expand. Such development will not only lead to growth in the population living in the Arctic but will likely increase emission types and magnitudes. Present‐day inventories show a large spread in the amount and location of emissions representing a significant source of uncertainty in model predictions that often deviate significantly from observations. This is a challenge for modeling studies that aim to assess the impacts of within Arctic air pollution. Prognoses for the future are hence even more difficult, given the additional uncertainty of estimating emissions based on future Arctic economic development scenarios.

Processes Controlling the Composition and Abundance of Arctic Aerosol

“…Decreasing sea ice extent is driving increased anthropogenic activities in Arctic regions, with implications for Arctic aerosol and other climate forcers (e.g., Arnold et al, ; Law et al, ; Roiger et al, ; Schmale et al, ). Future emissions are uncertain and will be determined by the interplay between a range of environmental, social, political, and economic factors (e.g., Peters et al, ).…”

Characterization of transport regimes and the polar dome during Arctic spring and summer using in situ aircraft measurements

“…1). This campaign was a joint NETCARE and PAMARCMiP (Polar Airborne Measurements and Arctic Regional Climate Model Simulation Project; https://www.awi.de/en/focus/ sea-ice/in-the-arctic-sea-ices-kindergarten.html, last access: 2 November 2019) project, which will be referred to as "NETCARE 2015" throughout this paper (e.g., Libois et al, 2016;Willis et al, 2019;Schulz et al, 2019). During 10 research flights, each 4-6 h long, we specifically focused on a better understanding of aerosol transport into the Arctic in early spring and its influence on ice cloud formation.…”

Integrative and comprehensive Understanding on Polar Environments (iCUPE): the concept and initial results

“…Organic compounds are of high importance because they contribute between one and two thirds to the submicron aerosol mass 285 in the Arctic (Willis et al, 2018;Schmale et al, 2018;Popovicheva et al, 2019) and may be co-emitted or interact with other aerosol species, such as black carbon (AMAP, 2015), sulfate (Kirpes et al, 2018) and metals (Shaw et al, 2010). If imported from lower latitudes, they also act as a vehicle of transport for Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) to the Arctic (Westgate et al, 2013).…”

“…Organic aerosols (OA) also absorb (Moschos et al, 2018) and scatter light, thereby changing the radiative balance (Myhre et al, 2013) and may act as cloud condensation nuclei. OA might become increasingly important in a warming Arctic 290 due to anthropogenic activities (Schmale et al, 2018) and natural emissions, e.g., as a result of expanded vegetation (Bhatt et al, 2010), intensified wildfires (Warneke et al, 2010), decreasing sea ice extent and thickness leading to higher release of marine volatile organic compounds (Mungall et al, 2017), and thawing tundra soils (permafrost) along shores and rivers (Peñuelas et al, 2014;Kramshøj et al, 2018). The continuous monitoring of organic carbon (OC) along with a detailed chemical analysis to determine its natural and anthropogenic sources, seasonal variability and inter-annual evolution in the 295 Arctic is of prime importance for improved climate simulations and a realistic assessment of the effectiveness of potential mitigation or adaptation actions.…”