Atmospheric transport of anthropogenic heavy metals from the Kola Peninsula to the surfaces of the White and Barents seas

The propagation of air masses and anthropogenic aerosol pollutants from a large industrial region located above the polar circle in the north of the Kola Peninsula is analyzed. The initial data are five-day-traveltime trajectories of air mass transport from the source, which were calculated for each day of January, April, July, and October over a period of 20 years from 1981 to 2000 according to the NOAA reanalysis data on meteorological fields. Seasonal and long-term variations in the mean concentrations of arsenic and heavy metals (Ni, Cu, Pb, Cd, V) in the surface air layer and precipitation over the waters of the White and Barents seas are studied. The results are compared with the published observational data characteristic of the region under study. It is shown that, on the whole, over a year, the atmospheric flux of persistent ecotoxicants from the Kola Peninsula to the waters of the White and Barents seas is fully comparable to the contribution of their inflowing rivers and this flux is dominant for nickel and copper.