Atmospheric Pollutant Loading to Olympic, Mount Rainier, and North Cascades National Parks: Spatial and Temporal Variability and Linkages To Trans-Pacific Air Masses
Simonich SL, Hageman K, Schrlau J, Jaffe D. 2013. Atmospheric Pollutant Loading to Olympic, Mount Rainier, and North Cascades National Parks: Spatial and Temporal Variability and Linkages To Trans-Pacific Air Masses. National Park Service. Corvalis, OR
The purpose of this project was to complement the Western Airborne Cantaminants Assessment Project (WACAP), a project sponsored by the National Park Service -- Air Resources Division (NPS-ARD) in response to findings that toxic airborne contaminants were increasingly being found in the world's most pristine alpine and polar ecosystems, far from where such chemicals were produced or used. In the WACAP study, atmospheric deposition was measured by collecting 1-3 samples of the seasonal snowpack annually in each of 8 national parks (NPs) in Alaska, Washington, Montana, California, and Colorado. In this study, commonly referred to as "Pacific Northwest (PNW) Snow", more intense snow and precipitation sampling was done in Mount Rainier (MORA), Olympic (OLYM), and North Cascades (NOCA) NPs. Objectives were to quantify factors affecting variabiility in contaminant deposition, and evaluate the relative influence of local, regional, and global sources on one area of the larger study. In MORA, the highest fluxes of both Current-Use Pesticides (CUPS) and Historic-Use Pesticides (HUPS) were found at elevations of 1500- 2000m, with fluxes decreasing at higher elevations. Local meteorological conditions appear to favor both higher precipitation amounts, and higher concentrations of many contaminants in deposition at these elevations. In OLYM, concentrations of pesticides were generally higher during late winter and spring relative to late fall and early winter months. Within NOCA and MORA, no strong differences in fluxes were observed between sites on opposite sides (West-East or North-South) of the parks, suggesting that local sources of contaminants were not dominant during the sampling period. Bulk precipitation sampling proved to be a useful approach for providing information on fluxes of contaminants for discrete time periods, and for supplementing seasonal snowpack sampling at sites vulnerable to rain-on-snow or mid-winter snowmelt events.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Authors
- Simonich, Staci; Hageman, Kimberly; Schrlau, Jill; Jaffe, Dan
- Date of Issue
- 2013-01-07
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- MORA , NOCA , OLYM
- Keywords
- Air Pollution, Air Quality, Atmospheric Deposition, snowpack airborne contaminants
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Human Use | Non-point Source Human Effects | Non-point Source Human Effects