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