PARENT SESSION
TP9 - POPS: Organisms & Atmospheric Transport
Chair: Muir, Derek1, 1 Environment Canada, Burlington, ON
Co-chair: Hites, Ron2, 2 Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
2:10 PM to 5:30 PM - Tuesday, 19 November 2002
Room Ballroom E
(478) Air-water gas exchange and possible sources of toxaphene in the Arctic.
Jantunen, Liisa*,1, Helm, Paul1, Ridal, Jeff2, Bidleman, Terry1, 1 Meteorological Service of Canada, Downsview, ON, Canada2 St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences, Cornwall, ON, Canada
ABSTRACT- Air and water samples were collected in the Bering and Chukchi seas, central Arctic Ocean and the Canadian Archipelago during the 1990s and analyzed for toxaphene. In addition, toxaphene was determined in archived air samples from monitoring stations in the Canadian Arctic. Estimates of air-water gas exchange, made from air and surface water concentrations using the temperature-dependent Henry's Law constant of technical toxaphene, indicated that toxaphene was volatilizing from arctic and sub-arctic regions. Toxaphene was heavily used in the southern U.S.A. throughout the 1970s until 1986. High residues still exist southern U.S soils and studies have demonstrated that these residues continually volatilize to contaminate air of the region. Does long-range transport of toxaphene from the southern U.S. have an impact on the Arctic? Relative proportions of octachlorinated bornane congeners (Parlar 39, 40, 41, 42 and 44) are compared in technical toxaphene, air and soils in past usage regions, Great Lakes air and water and arctic air and water. The profiles of these congeners in arctic air and water are quite different from those in the southern U.S. and Great Lakes, and suggest that there may be other sources that contribute toxaphene to the Canadian Arctic.
Key words: toxaphene, arctic, air-water gas exchange