Three years (2008–2010) of measurements of atmospheric concentrations of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) at Station Nord, North-East Greenland

Abstract

Hexachlorobenzene (HCB), endosulfan I and hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs) were the predominant compounds detected in the atmosphere, followed by p,p 0 -DDE and dieldrin. Chlordane isomers and related compounds (trans-and cis-chlordanes, heptachlor and heptachlor epoxide, trans-and cis-nonachlor) were also detected. Atmospheric concentrations of the investigated compounds were correlated with temperature using the Clausius-Clapeyron equation in order to obtain information about their transport properties. The correlation between atmospheric concentrations and temperature was not significant for endosulfan I, g-HCH and p,p 0 -DDT, which indicates that direct transport from direct sources is the dominating transport mechanism for these compounds. A significant correlation with temperature was found for all the other studied pesticides and pesticide degradation products, which indicates that re-emission of these compounds from previously contaminated surfaces is an important factor for the observed variation in concentrations. Pesticide concentrations were also correlated with sea ice cover. Concentrations of the compounds that have not been in use for decades correlated with temperature and ice cover, while concentrations of compounds still in use did not correlate with either of these parameters. These observations indicate that processes such as revolatilization from the open sea surface are important mediating factors in the dynamics of anthropogenic persistent pollutants in the Arctic environment under the expected influence of climate change processes. Environmental impactThis paper reports for the rst time atmospheric concentrations of organochlorine pesticides in a high Arctic region of Greenland. These data contribute to the general knowledge about transport and dynamics of persistent pollutants in Arctic regions.

Novel brominated flame retardants and dechlorane plus in Greenland air and biota

“…Because of the limited sample amount and the suite of compounds to be monitored in the same samples (Bossi et al, 2013), the analyses in this study only included BTBPE, DPTE, syn-and anti-DP. Analytical standards were obtained from Wellington Laboratories (Guelph, Ont., Canada).…”

“…Samples were collected at Station Nord (81 36 0 N 16 40 0 E) in North-East Greenland as described by Bossi et al (2013). The samples were collected on a weekly basis in 2012 using a High Volume Sampler (Digitel, Hegnau, Switzerland) at a flow rate of 0.5 m 3 /min, resulting in a total sample volume of 5000 m 3 for each sample.…”

“…The extracts were cleaned on 1 g silica (ISOLUTE ® Si, Biotage, Uppsala, Sweden; 7% moisture), which had been conditioned with 5 ml hexane, and eluted with 7 ml hexane:dichloromethane (30:70, v:v) and 7 ml dichloromethane, which subsequently were combined. The instrumental analysis was performed by gas chromatography (GC) with high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) as described by Kolic et al (2009) and Bossi et al (2013).…”

Prospects for reconstructing paleoenvironmental conditions from organic compounds in polar snow and ice

“…The poles remain in the popular imagination as the final frontier of purely natural locations that are far removed from effects of human activity. In fact, the poles are regions of "minimum anthropogenic presence" (Kallenborn et al, 2013) but are not absent of human influence (Bossi et al, 2013;Chen et al, 2015;Fuoco et al, 2012;Hermanson et al, 2005;Ma et al, 2011). Transport of anthropogenically-emitted compounds from lower latitudes to the Arctic (and to a lesser extent the Antarctic) has been recognised for many decades, and is commonly referred to as Arctic Haze (e.g.…”

Emissions of selected semivolatile organic chemicals from open-field biomass burning and its role as an air pollution source in Australia

“…Whereas the concentration of HEPX was typically higher than HEPT in air samples from Greenland (Bossi et al, 2013), South Korea (Yeo et al, 2003, France and North America (Shunthirasingham et al, 2010b). This was not the case in this study: at all sites, the concentration of HEPT in air was higher than HEPX (on average the concentration of HEPT was 10 times higher than that of HEPX).…”