Distribution of persistent organic pollutants in surface snow from the east Antartica

Abstract

A series of evaporation and deposition, a long-range atmospheric transport, and a cold condensation process is important processes to widespread distribution of Persistent Organic Pollutants(POPs) in remote polar regions. The atmospheric POPs from the source regions could be deposited into the surface snow in Antarctica. However, the data of the snow concentration of POPs are limited than other environmental matrixes. In the present work, we report the concentrations of hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB) in the surface snow samples obtained from the East Antarctica between 2011 and 2013. The concentrations of HCHs and HBC in the East Antarctic snow were low compared to those in remote regions of the northern hemisphere. Our previous snow concentrations of POPs from Dome Fuji and Dome A were compared to those od the present studies. Our results indicate that the surface snow in East Antarctica contains low levels of POPs, which could affect Antarctic ecosystem.