Water-soluble trace, rare earth elements and organic compounds in Arctic aerosol

We investigated the elemental composition and water-soluble-organic compounds (WSOC) present in size-segregated airborne particulate matter to better understand: (1) the distribution of the water-soluble fraction of trace elements (TE), rare earth elements (REE) and WSOCs among different particulate sizes, and (2) the transport processes of aerosol towards the Arctic zone. Samples were collected at Ny-Alesund in the Svalbard Islands (78A degrees 55'07aEuro(3)N, 11A degrees 53'30aEuro(3)E) from 19 April to 14 September 2010. Water-soluble TE and REE were measured with the aim of recognising reliable tracers of specific sources, which may prove crucial in cost-effective strategies of air pollution control. The TE and REE content, especially in the finest fractions of aerosols in remote areas, is primarily due to long-range transport. It gives valuable information on the global circulation and on the contribution of human activities to aerosol composition (Birmili et al. in Environ Sci Technol 40:1144-1153, 2006; Fernandez-Espinosa et al. in Atmos Environ 38:873-886, 2004; Song et al. in Atmos Environ 35:5277-5286, 2001). On the same samples, we also determined water-soluble organic tracers as specific source indicators: levoglucosan and methoxyphenols from biomass burning, acrylamide from anthropogenic origin and amino acids from primary production. These results were discussed in previous papers (Scalabrin et al. in Atmos Chem Phys 12:10453-10463, 2012; Zangrando et al. in Environ Sci Technol 47:8565-8574, 2013).