Current use and legacy pesticide deposition to ice caps on Svalbard, Norway

Transport and deposition of current use (CUP) and legacy pesticides (LP) and residual products to the Arctic have been documented in abiotic matrices. These observations show that some "low-persistence" pesticides with high OH center dot reaction rates are stable enough to accumulate in a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Geophysical Research
Main Authors: Ruggirello, Rachel M., Hermanson, Mark H., Isaksson, Elisabeth, Teixeira, Camilla, Forsstrom, Sanja, Muir, Derek C. G., Pohjola, Veijo, van de Wal, Roderik, Meijer, Harro A. J.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2010
Subjects:
LONG-RANGE TRANSPORT
PERSISTENT ORGANIC POLLUTANTS
ORGANOCHLORINE PESTICIDES
ATMOSPHERIC TRANSPORT
OZONE
AIR
CONTAMINANTS
CHEMICALS
HCH
HEXACHLOROCYCLOHEXANE
Arctic
Austfonna
Holtedahlfonna
Norway
Svalbard
ice core
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/11370/d8c63c91-b675-4752-99be-8f0b5b0466e9
https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/d8c63c91-b675-4752-99be-8f0b5b0466e9
https://doi.org/10.1029/2010JD014005
https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/67088043/Ruggirello_et_al_2010_Journal_of_Geophysical_Research_3A_Atmospheres_281984_2012_29.pdf
Description
Summary:Transport and deposition of current use (CUP) and legacy pesticides (LP) and residual products to the Arctic have been documented in abiotic matrices. These observations show that some "low-persistence" pesticides with high OH center dot reaction rates are stable enough to accumulate in a polar environment. In 2005, we drilled an ice core on Holtedahlfonna, one of the major ice fields on Svalbard, Norway to measure the input of 47 CUPs and 17 LPs to a high-elevation abiotic environment with no local pesticide sources. Of these, 9 CUPs and 12 LPs were observed in at least one of 6 core segments dating to 1953: 15 of these were found in enough core segments to reveal time-related trends. CUPs often observed included chlorpyrifos, dacthal, alpha- and beta- endosulfan, endosulfan sulfate, trifluralin, and gamma-HCH. LPs most often observed included methoxychlor, alpha- and gamma-chlordane, cis- and trans- nonachlor, endrin, dieldrin, and p, p'-DDE. In our comparison of core burdens at Holtedahlfonna and Austfonna (220 km ENE from Holtedahlfonna), we found twice as many CUPs at Austfonna along with greater amounts of dieldrin, methoxychlor, alpha-endosulfan and chlorpyrifos suggesting different accumulation processes or sources. Air mass back trajectories over a 10-year period of comparison between sites (1986-1995) show air mass flow from Eurasia 74% of the time to Austfonna and 45% to Holtedahfonna which may account for some of the differences.

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