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Modelling the Impact of Climate Change on the Atmospheric Transport and the Fate of Persistent Organic Pollutants in the Arctic

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Modelling the Impact of Climate Change on the Atmospheric Transport and the Fate of Persistent Organic Pollutants in the Arctic Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 6549–6559, 2015 www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/6549/2015/ doi:10.5194/acp-15-6549-2015 © Author(s) 2015. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Modelling the impact of climate change on the atmospheric transport and the fate of persistent organic pollutants in the Arctic K. M. Hansen1, J. H. Christensen1, C. Geels1, J. D. Silver1,2, and J. Brandt1 1Department of Environmental Science and Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark 2now at: School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia Correspondence to: K. M. Hansen ([email protected]) Received: 8 January 2015 – Published in Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss.: 5 March 2015 Revised: 25 May 2015 – Accepted: 1 June 2015 – Published: 15 June 2015 Abstract. The Danish Eulerian Hemispheric Model This is to some degree counteracted by higher degradation (DEHM) was applied to investigate how projected climate rates also following the higher mean temperature. The changes will affect the atmospheric transport of 13 per- more dominant of these two processes depends on the sistent organic pollutants (POPs) to the Arctic and their physical-chemical properties of the compounds. Previous environmental fate within the Arctic. Three sets of simula- model studies have predicted that the effect of a changed tions were performed, one with present day emissions and climate on the transport of POPs to the Arctic is moderate initial environmental concentrations from a 20-year spin-up relative to the effect of proposed changes in emissions, simulation, one with present day emissions and with initial which is confirmed in this study. However, the model studies environmental concentrations set to zero and one without do not agree on whether climate change acts to reduce or emissions but with initial environmental concentrations increase environmental concentrations of POPs in the Arctic, from the 20-year spin-up simulation. Each set of simulations and further work is needed to resolve this matter. consisted of two 10-year time slices representing the present (1990–2000) and future (2090–2100) climate conditions. DEHM was driven using meteorological input from the global circulation model, ECHAM/MPI-OM, simulating the 1 Introduction SRES (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios) A1B climate scenario. Under the applied climate and emission scenarios, The climate has changed in recent decades with the main sign the total mass of all compounds was predicted to be up to being an increase in global mean temperature. In both the 55 % lower across the Northern Hemisphere at the end of 4th and the recent 5th IPCC Assessment Report (AR4 and the 2090s than in the 1990s. The mass of HCHs within the AR5), the multi-model ensembles project an increase in the ◦ Arctic was predicted to be up to 38 % higher, whereas the global mean temperature in the range of 1–6 C by the end change in mass of the PCBs was predicted to range from of the 21st century, relative to pre-industrial temperature lev- 38 % lower to 17 % higher depending on the congener and els (IPCC, 2007; Rogelj et al., 2012). The broad range in the the applied initial environmental concentrations. The results projected temperature increase is linked to the various green- of this study also indicate that contaminants with no or a house gas emission scenarios used as input to the climate short emission history will be more rapidly transported to simulations. and build up in the arctic environment in a future warmer Within the Arctic these changes are projected to be larger climate. The process that dominates the environmental be- than elsewhere. According to one of the intermediate emis- haviour of POPs in the Arctic under a future warmer climate sion scenarios applied in AR4, the SRES (Special Report on scenario is the shift in mass of POPs from the surface media Emissions Scenarios) A1B scenario, the average temperature ◦ to the atmosphere induced by the higher mean temperature. increase in the Arctic exceeds 9 C by the end of the 21st century compared to the 1990s (Hedegaard et al., 2012). The Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 6550 K. M. Hansen et al.: Modelling the impact of climate change increasing temperature leads to enhanced seasonal melting of 2 atmospheric layers (Lamon et al., 2009; Wöhrnschimmel et the Arctic Ocean sea ice, retreating of glaciers and melting of al., 2013) as well as simplified representations of important the Greenland ice sheet. Changes are also projected for pre- atmospheric processes. It is thus important to test whether cipitation patterns as well as in weather patterns in general. the predictions from these studies are reliable using more ad- Climate change impacts the physical and chemical pro- vanced models. cesses in the atmosphere, including atmospheric transport The aim of this study is to investigate how a changed cli- pathways, chemical composition, air-surface exchange pro- mate will affect the fate of POPs with special focus on the cesses, natural emissions, etc., see Jacob and Winner (2009) transport to and fate within the Arctic, and to determine if for a review. Changes in climate alone might lead to both there will be a climate penalty or benefit on POPs in terms lower or higher levels of specific pollutants in the atmosphere of higher or lower environmental concentrations and thus leading to a lower or higher exposure, which can be referred higher or lower potential exposure. The applied model has to as a “climate benefit” or “climate penalty”, respectively. a much higher spatial resolution and with more detailed de- During the last decade a number of studies have examined scriptions of atmospheric degradation and airborne partic- the effects of climate change on air pollutants such as ozone ulate matter than previous model studies. The model was (Hedegaard et al., 2008, 2012; Anderson and Engardt, 2010; previously applied to study the effect of climate change on Langner et al., 2012) and particulate matter (Hedegaard et al., future atmospheric levels of ozone and particulate matter 2013; Colette et al., 2013; Simpson et al., 2014). So far, the (Hedegaard et al., 2008, 2012, 2013; Langner et al., 2012; most robust signal is seen for ozone with an overall climate Simpson et al., 2014). penalty projected for the future; however, there are large un- certainties associated with, for example, the natural sources for ozone precursors and their sensitivity to climate changes 2 Model (Langner et al., 2012). It has also been shown that this kind of study is very dependent on the applied climate input (Man- We applied the Danish Eulerian Hemispheric Model ders et al., 2012). (DEHM), a 3-D dynamic atmospheric chemistry-transport The environmental fate of persistent organic pollutants model covering the Northern Hemisphere with a horizon- (POPs) is determined by many different environmental fac- tal resolution of 150 km × 150 km and 20 vertical layers ex- tors, several of which may be affected by climate change, tending to a height of 10hPa. DEHM comprises a com- thus making the combined effect difficult to predict. A re- prehensive chemistry scheme including full ozone chem- port from a UNEP/AMAP expert group outlines qualitatively istry and particulate matter and is driven by meteorolog- the effects of the warming of the climate on the cycling and ical data (temperature in air and surface media, pressure, fate of POPs in the environment (UNEP/AMAP, 2011): in- wind velocity, humidity, solar radiation, cloud cover and sea creasing temperatures can lead to changed partitioning be- ice cover) from a numerical weather prediction model. A tween the different media as well as to enhanced revolatiliza- detailed description of the model can be found in Chris- tion from historically deposited compounds, which can lead tensen (1997), Frohn et al. (2002), and Brandt et al. (2012). to larger atmospheric transport. Higher temperatures also in- DEHM has successfully been applied to study the transport crease degradation rates in both air and surface media. Melt- and fate of a range of chemical compounds to the Arctic, in- ing of polar ice caps and glaciers will result in larger air– cluding sulphur and sulphate (Christensen, 1997), mercury surface exchange and the melting ice may release stored (Christensen et al., 2004; Skov et al., 2004), POPs (Hansen POPs to the marine and atmospheric environments. Higher et al., 2004, 2008a, b), and Decamethylcyclopentasiloxane wind speed may lead to enhanced atmospheric transport (Krogseth et al., 2013). Two-way air-surface gas exchange downwind of major source areas and increasing precipitation processes as well as intra-compartmental processes are in- in the Arctic may lead to increasing deposition. cluded for the surface compartments soil, water, vegetation, The effect of a changed climate on the transport and fate and snow (Hansen et al., 2004, 2008a). Model evaluations of POPs in the Arctic has been investigated in a few studies against measured air concentrations show reasonable agree- with a range of different modelling approaches and model ment with predicted concentrations for a range of persistent setups (Lamon et a., 2009; Armitage et al., 2011; Gouin et compounds (Hansen et al., 2004, 2006, 2008a, b; McLachlan al., 2013; Wöhrnschimmel et al., 2013, Armitage and Wa- et al., 2010; Genualdi et al., 2011; Krogseth et al., 2013). nia, 2013). Despite differences in modelling approaches, the Most of the environmental processes described in DEHM studies generally predict that
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