Arctic contaminants and climate change

• Published in: Nature Climate Change
• Main Author: Roberts, Tjarda J.
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace (LPC2E), Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers en région Centre (OSUC), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National d’Études Spatiales Paris (CNES)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2012
• Subjects: [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Arctic; Climate change; Svalbard
• Online Access: https://insu.hal.science/insu-01258668; https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1747

International audience In a recent Letter1, Ma et al. analysed eight persistent organic pollutants (POPs) at an Arctic monitoring station (Mount Zeppelin, 474 metres above sea level, Svalbard). They identified inclines in the latter parts of the linearly detrended concentration time-series (1993–2009). Their interpretation is that many POPs (besides the more volatile polychlorinated biphenyls and hexachlorobenzene) have become remobilized from Arctic repositories into the atmosphere as a consequence of climate change. However, it should be emphasized that other factors can cause the reported inclines, which reflect nonlinearities (or a degree of curvature) within the data.