On the Mechanism of Mountain Cold-Trapping of Organic Chemicals

• Published in: Environmental science & technology Vol. 42; no. 24; pp. 9092 - 9098
• Main Authors: Wania, Frank, Westgate, John N
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 15.12.2008
• Subjects: Air Movements; Altitude; Applied sciences; Cold; Cold Climate; Cold Temperature; Computer Simulation; Ecosystem; Environmental Pollutants - analysis; Environmental Processes; Environmental science; Exact sciences and technology; Mountains; Organic chemicals; Organic Chemicals - analysis; Organic chemistry; Pollution; Precipitation; Rain; Seasons; Snow; Pollutant behavior; Scavenging; Temperature effect; Polychlorobiphenyls; Partition coefficient; Modeling; Persistent organic pollutant; Transport process; Trapping; Rain; Atmospheric chemistry; Mountain; Aerosols; Foliage; Air pollution; Phase partition; Precipitation scavenging
• ISSN: 0013-936X; 1520-5851
• DOI: 10.1021/es8013198

The preferential accumulation of selected organic pollutants at higher altitude has been observed in a number of mountain regions. It is proposed that this phenomenon is due to differences in the efficiency of precipitation scavenging at various elevations, which, in turn, is due to the temperature dependence of organic vapor partitioning into rain, snow, and aerosols. The occurrence and extent of enrichment with elevation depends on whether the scavenging efficiency of a chemical is sensitive to temperature within the range encountered along a mountain slope. A multicompartment fate and transport model parameterized for mountain systems suggests that substances with equilibrium partitioning coefficients at 25 °C between water and air from 103.5 to 105.5 and between atmospheric particles and air from 109 to 1011 are most likely to be subject to mountain cold-trapping. Such substances remain in the atmospheric vapor phase at higher valley temperatures, but are scavenged efficiently at the lower temperatures prevailing at higher altitudes. This implies that substances subject to mountain cold-trapping are approximately 2 orders of magnitude less volatile than substances that experience global cold-trapping. For example, while lighter PCBs get preferentially trapped at higher latitudes, the heavier PCBs are predicted to experience the strongest mountain cold-trapping. These model results agree with the results of field studies, with the exception of those studies that rely on sample media such as plant foliage for which precipitation is not the dominant deposition pathway. It appears that very fast deposition processes are required to trap contaminants along mountain slopes, whereas such processes reduce contaminant transport to remote polar regions.