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Water-soluble trace, rare earth elements and organic compounds in Arctic aerosol

  • Environmental Changes in Arctic
  • Published:
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Abstract

We investigated the elemental composition and water-soluble-organic compounds (WSOC) present in size-segregated airborne particulate matter to better understand: (1) the distribution of the water-soluble fraction of trace elements (TE), rare earth elements (REE) and WSOCs among different particulate sizes, and (2) the transport processes of aerosol towards the Arctic zone. Samples were collected at Ny-Alesund in the Svalbard Islands (78°55′07″N, 11°53′30″E) from 19 April to 14 September 2010. Water-soluble TE and REE were measured with the aim of recognising reliable tracers of specific sources, which may prove crucial in cost-effective strategies of air pollution control. The TE and REE content, especially in the finest fractions of aerosols in remote areas, is primarily due to long-range transport. It gives valuable information on the global circulation and on the contribution of human activities to aerosol composition (Birmili et al. in Environ Sci Technol 40:1144–1153, 2006; Fernández-Espinosa et al. in Atmos Environ 38:873–886, 2004; Song et al. in Atmos Environ 35:5277–5286, 2001). On the same samples, we also determined water-soluble organic tracers as specific source indicators: levoglucosan and methoxyphenols from biomass burning, acrylamide from anthropogenic origin and amino acids from primary production. These results were discussed in previous papers (Scalabrin et al. in Atmos Chem Phys 12:10453–10463, 2012; Zangrando et al. in Environ Sci Technol 47:8565–8574, 2013).

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Acknowledgments

This paper is a contribution to the PRIN 2007L8Y4NB Project, funded by Italian MURST and supported by EARLY human IMPACT project “How long have human activities been affecting the climate system?” (Project No. 267696). The logistic support of the National Research Council—Department of Earth System Science and Environmental Technologies (CNR-DTA) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank Elga Lab water, High Wycombe UK for supplying the pure water systems used in this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for the Dynamics of Environmental Processes, IDPA-CNR, Via Torino 155, Venezia-Mestre, 30172, Venice, Italy

    Clara Turetta, Roberta Zangrando, Elena Barbaro, Jacopo Gabrieli, Piero Zennaro, Andrea Gambaro & Carlo Barbante

  2. Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca′ Foscari University of Venice, Via Torino 155, 30172, Venice, Italy

    Elena Barbaro, Elisa Scalabrin, Andrea Gambaro, Giuseppa Toscano & Carlo Barbante

Authors
  1. Clara Turetta
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  2. Roberta Zangrando
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  3. Elena Barbaro
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  4. Jacopo Gabrieli
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  5. Elisa Scalabrin
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  6. Piero Zennaro
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  7. Andrea Gambaro
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  8. Giuseppa Toscano
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  9. Carlo Barbante
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Clara Turetta.

Additional information

This peer-reviewed article is a result of the multi and interdisciplinary research activities based at the Arctic Station “Dirigibile Italia”, coordinated by the “Dipartimento Scienze del Sistema Terra e Tecnologie per l’Ambiente” of the National Research Council of Italy.

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Turetta, C., Zangrando, R., Barbaro, E. et al. Water-soluble trace, rare earth elements and organic compounds in Arctic aerosol. Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei 27 (Suppl 1), 95–103 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12210-016-0518-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12210-016-0518-6

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