Chemical composition of atmospheric aerosol in the European subarctic: Contribution of the Kola Peninsula smelter areas, central Europe, and the Arctic Ocean

An 18-month set of concentration data of various elements in fine (diameter D < 2.5 mu m) and coarse (2.5 mu m< D <15 mu m) particles is presented. Me asurements were done at Sevettijarvi, similar to 60 km WNW of Nikel, a larg e pollution source on the Kola Peninsula, Russia. The concentrations in aer osol arriving from the Norwegian Sea and the Arctic Ocean are very close to the values observed at more remote Arctic sites. In air from the Kola Peni nsula, approximately one third of the samples, concentrations of some trace elements were similar to 2 orders of magnitude above the background concen trations. The elements most clearly transported in the pollution plumes fro m Kola Peninsula were Cd, Ni, Cu, V, Pb, As, Fe, and Co. Penner et al. [199 3] presented a method for estimating black carbon (BC) emissions by compari ng BC/SO2 (S) close to the sources and used a ratio 0.6 for the former USSR . We found that this ratio was < 0.1 in the dearest pollution plumes from K ola peninsula. The ratio of the chemical mass to the gravimetric mass of th e aerosol samples was similar to 80% both for the fine and coarse particle filters, regardless of the source area. Comparison of the aerosol concentra tions with the concentrations of elements in snow showed that the depositio n was proportional to the aerosol exposure. The contribution of Kola Penins ula to the deposition is high, similar to 80% for Ni, Cu, and Co and somewh at lower for other anthropogenic elements.