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| Titel |
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon and Polychlorinated Biphenyl Trends and Source Apportionment in Europe Using Back Trajectories |
| VerfasserIn |
E. Reimer, G. Lämmel, J. Jarkovsky, A. Dvorská |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2009
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 11 (2009) |
| Datensatznummer |
250027436
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are classes
of organic substances with most of the individual substances being semivolatile and to
some degree resisting degradation in the environment (persistent), hence, undergo
long-range transport and reach pristine areas in high altitudes and latitudes. PCBs
and even more so PAHs pose significant human health hazards in Europe (WHO,
2003).
PAHs are emitted especially in incomplete combustion processes in both the gaseous
and particulate phases (sorbed to soot). PCBs have been banned from most uses,
such that re-emission and volatilization from old urban and industrial materials are
prevailing atmospheric sources. As a consequence of fuel, combustion technology and
legislative changes sources are changing in strength, substance pattern, and geographic
distribution.
Monitoring data in air at a central European continental background station, Košetice,
Czech Republic, of 1997-2007 (Holoubek et al., 2007) were used in combination with
back-trajectories to localize sources of selected PAHs and PCBs in central, western, eastern
and southeastern Europe. The trajectory scheme uses the isentropic coordinate with some
diabatic components and a special boundary layer modelling (Reimer & Scherer, 1992).
Areal contact matrices over Europe are obtained by integration in time of the contacts of the
backward trajectories with the ground (1x1 km2 grid) and weighting by the observed
concentrations (or fictive concentrations of factors). Positive matrix factorization (Paatero,
1997) was used to infer the substance patterns of the sources (so-called factors) which
most significantly contributed to PAH levels at Košetice and a second site, Leipzig,
Germany.
The interpretation of the results is based on matrices of transport to up to three receptor
sites in central Europe. Potential source distributions are presented and discussed. The
analysis of air pollution in Košetice in the periods 1997-99 and 2004-06 suggests that PCB
sources have been decreasing quite uniformly across central and western Europe. There is no
significant long-term trend of PAHs.
References:
Holoubek I., Klánová J., Jarkovský J., Kohoutek J. (2007): Assessment of the central
European trends in the background levels of persistent organic pollutants based on
the results of the long-term integrated monitoring in Kosetice observatory, Czech
Republic. Part I. Ambient air and wet deposition 1988-2005, J. Environ. Monitoring 9,
557-563
Paatero P. (1997): Least square formulation of robust non-negative factor analysis,
Chemometrics Intelligent Lab. Systems 37, 23-35
Reimer E., Scherer B. (1992): An operational meteorological diagnostic system for
regional air pollution analysis and long-term modeling, in: Air Pollution Modelling and its
Application (van Dop H., Kallos G., eds.), New York (Plenum), pp. 565-572
WHO (2003) - World Health Organization: Health risks of persistent organic pollutants
from long-range transboundary air pollution. WHO Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen,
252 pp. |
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