Temporal trends in atmospheric heavy metal and organochlorine concentrations at Zeppelin, Svalbard

Abstract

As a part of the national Norwegian monitoring program, long-term surveys of contaminants have been carried out at the Zeppelin atmospheric research station (Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard) since the early 1990s. In the present study, all obtained data have been summarized and analyzed in order to review possible temporal trends for selected atmospheric contaminants at Svalbard. The following heavy metals were determined in aerosols: Pb, Cd, Hg, Cu, Zn, Cr, Ni, Co, Mn, V, and As. Only Ni showed a decreasing trend in the concentrations over the past decade. Organochlorine compounds in combined gaseous phase and aerosol samples evaluated were the following: α-HCH (hexachlorocyclohexane), γ-HCH, HCB (hexachlorobenzene), and sum-DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane). Only those organochlorines exhibiting significant statistically confirmed temporal trends were chosen for the present comparison. Thus, although polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as well as chlordanes are routinely monitored at the Zeppelin station, they were not considered for the here presented report because no clear trends were determined. Therefore all, but sum-DDT showed significant decreasing trends, correlating well with the national and international governmental regulations.