Vol. 14, issue 06-07, article # 6

Abstract:

The spatial distribution of the Arctic air in the midlatitudes has been statistically analyzed. The effect of air transport on cleaning the Arctic atmosphere has been estimated in comparison with the traditionally considered cleaning of the atmosphere by deposition of pollutants onto the surface. The 10-year series of 8-day forward trajectories of air mass transport from three Arctic sites - Franz Josef Land, Severnaya Zemlya, and Wrangel Island - have been studied. The trajectories have been calculated in the State Committee for Hydrology and Meteorology of the Russian Federation at the 850 hPa isobaric surface for every day of one winter month of 1986-1995. In winter, the air transport of pollutants out of the Arctic is the most efficient way of cleaning the Arctic atmosphere. Its equivalent "sedimentation rate" is higher than the dry and wet sedimentation rates for conservative pollutants transported on submicron aerosol particles. The amount of such pollutants transported during one winter month out of the Arctic as a whole is about two times larger than that deposited onto the land surface.