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

Abstract

An 18‐month set of concentration data of various elements in fine (diameter D <2.5 μm) and coarse (2.5 μm<D<15 μm) particles is presented. Measurements were done at Sevettijärvi, ∼60 km WNW of Nikel, a large pollution source on the Kola Peninsula, Russia. The concentrations in aerosol 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 Peninsula, approximately one third of the samples, concentrations of some trace elements were ∼2 orders of magnitude above the background concentrations. The elements most clearly transported in the pollution plumes from Kola Peninsula were Cd, Ni, Cu, V, Pb, As, Fe, and Co. Penner et al. [1993] presented a method for estimating black carbon (BC) emissions by comparing 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 clearest pollution plumes from Kola peninsula. The ratio of the chemical mass to the gravimetric mass of the aerosol samples was ∼80% both for the fine and coarse particle filters, regardless of the source area. Comparison of the aerosol concentrations with the concentrations of elements in snow showed that the deposition was proportional to the aerosol exposure. The contribution of Kola Peninsula to the deposition is high, ∼80% for Ni, Cu, and Co and somewhat lower for other anthropogenic elements.