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October 27, 2003
Seattle, Washington, USA

Modeling Atmospheric Transport of Trace Pollutants to the Arctic: Source-to-Receptor Air Transfer Coefficient Maps: A Tool to Show how Changes in Weather, Climate and Emissions can Change Contaminant Source Pathways and Deposition Patterns

Paul W. Bartlett¹, Kimberly Couchot^2
1Center for the Biology of Natural Systems (CBNS), Queens College, City University of New York, Paul Bartlett, 184 Norfolk St 3C, New York, NY, 10002, USA, Phone 212-477-0262, Fax 718-670-4189, paulwoodsbartlett@hotmail.com
²CBNS, Queens College, CUNY, USA

Air Transfer Coefficient (ATC) maps are in a very limited sense similar to back trajectories, but include much more information than a center line of air movement. The ATC maps represent the environmental fate of a particular contaminant between the source and the receptor: vertical and horizontal dispersion, atmospheric degradation, deposition en route, and the final result, the fraction of the pollutant originally emitted that deposits at the receptor, the air transfer coefficient. The ATC can be multiplied by a known or hypothetical source emission to yield the amount deposited to the receptor.

ATC maps are a product of a CBNS adaptation of NOAA’s numerical atmospheric dispersion model HYSPLIT to simulate environmental fate of trace contaminants with meteorological data. CBNS ATC maps presented in this poster include monthly and annual average ATC maps showing how changing weather patterns affect the long distant atmospheric transport of dioxin from North America to selected arctic Nunavut communities and hunting grounds.

We propose to extend this work to other northern hemisphere source regions (Japan, Asia and Europe); add geographical and ecological receptors in Alaska (hunting grounds; biodiversity, polynyas); model years with historical meteorological data to investigate climate change (e.g. arctic oscillation); apply new emission source inventories and future emission scenarios (e.g. growth in China, emission reduction in Canada and the U.S.); distinguish local sources from distant sources (e.g. use the new Alaskan dioxin emission inventory by NACEC); adapt the model for surface-air exchange (oceans, lakes, land surface, vegetation); and model additional trace contaminants measured in the arctic (e.g. PCB, PAH, pesticides).

Abstract Categories: Changes in the Atmosphere

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