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Climate Change and the European Water Dimension - Agri ...

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<strong>Climate</strong> <strong>Change</strong><br />

<strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />

<strong>European</strong> <strong>Water</strong> <strong>Dimension</strong><br />

Chapter VI.F.2 <strong>Climate</strong> <strong>Change</strong> <strong>and</strong> Global<br />

Persistent Organic Chemicals<br />

Key Points<br />

• The atmosphere is <strong>the</strong> ‘conduit’ through which POPs can<br />

move from atmospheric emission sources via deposition to<br />

terrestrial <strong>and</strong> aquatic ecosystems, several processes<br />

accelerated by climate warmng.<br />

• A net transfer of POPs from warm source/usage areas to<br />

colder remote regions (i.e. a global re-distribution) is<br />

documented. Repeated temperature-controlled air-surface<br />

exchange provides <strong>the</strong> key mechanism for this so-called ‘cold<br />

condensation’ process. Fur<strong>the</strong>rmore, ‘global fractionation’<br />

may occur, whereby different POPs travel different distances<br />

from a common source area.<br />

• Temperature is an important driver to <strong>the</strong> global cycling of<br />

POPs through its influence on emissions from primary <strong>and</strong><br />

secondary sources, gas-particle distributions, reaction rates,<br />

air-surface exchange (inl<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> marine waters, vegetation,<br />

soils, snow/ice) <strong>and</strong> global transport.<br />

• ‘Inter-annual variations of POP air concentrations from <strong>the</strong><br />

Great Lakes region <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> Arctic have been strongly<br />

associated with atmospheric low-frequency fluctuations,<br />

notably <strong>the</strong> North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), <strong>the</strong> El-Nino-<br />

Sou<strong>the</strong>rn Oscillation (ENSO) <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> Pacific North American<br />

(PNA) pattern. This suggests interactions between climate<br />

variation <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> global distribution of POPs….” Ma et al.,<br />

2004.<br />

207

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