Anthropogenic aerosols, indicators

The atmospheric concentrations of Zn and Sb are also anomolously high in remote areas. Rahn has suggested that major fractions of these and several other elements (e.g., Se, Hg, Cu) present in the atmosphere at remote sites may originate from mans activities (4). If so, these elements may serve as more useful indicators of anthropogenic aerosols than vanadium since their enrichments relative to the world-wide soil average are much greater than that of vanadium. However, before they can become useful tracers it will be necessary to establish clearly their major... 

Table VI summarizes aerosol mass concentrations and composition in different regions of the troposphere. It is interesting to note that average total fine particle mass (that associated with particles of diameter less than about 2 /im) in non-urban continental, i.e., regional, aerosols is only a factor of two lower than urban values. This reflects the relatively long residence time of particles (recall the estimate of a lifetime of fine particles by dry deposition of 10 days). Correspondingly, the average composition of non-urban continental and urban aerosols is roughly the same. The average mass concentration of remote aerosols is a factor of three lower than that of non-urban continental aerosols. The elemental carbon component, a direct indicator of anthropogenic combustion sources, drops to 0.3% in the remote aerosols, but sulfate is still a major compo-...

In coastal seawater such as the Western Mediterranean basin, soil-derived particles originated from arid areas (in this case the Sahara). The atmospheric flux of anthropogenic trace metals, however, was dominated by aerosols from industrialized regions of Western Europe. Volcanic activity (Mount Etna) contributes selenium. The atmospheric input of Cr, Hg, Pb, and Zn into the Western Mediterranean basin is of the same order of magnitude as the riverine and coastal inputs of these components (Arnold et al. 1983). For the southern bight of the North Sea, estimates even indicate a predominance of the atmospheric input of... 

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