EGU23-12385
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-12385
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Recent heavy metal pollution from the territory of the former Soviet Union (FSU) – ice core records and emission estimates

Anja Eichler1,2, Petr Nalivaika1,2,3, Theo Jenk1,2, Thomas Singer1,2,3, Sergey Kakareka4, Tamara Kukharchyk4, Stella Eyrikh5, Tatjana Papina5, Andreas Plach6, and Margit Schwikowski1,2,3
Anja Eichler et al.
  • 1Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry, Paul Scherrer Institute, CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
  • 2Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
  • 3Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
  • 4Laboratory of Transboundary Pollution, Institute for Nature Management, 220076 Minsk, Belarus
  • 5Institute for Water and Environmental Problems, 656038 Barnaul, Russia
  • 6Department of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Vienna, 1090 Wien, Austria

Atmospheric heavy metal pollution caused by metal smelting, mining, waste incineration and fossil fuel combustion presents a significant issue for human health and the environment. Anthropogenic emissions from the territory of the former Soviet Union (FSU) considerably influenced atmospheric concentrations of heavy metals. However, due to scarce monitoring data and fragmentary reporting, emissions quantities from this region are not well-known and it is even unclear if emissions decreased or increased after collapse of the Soviet Union. This is underlined by the fact that existing ice-core records and emission estimates based on national inventories for the FSU reveal an opposing trend for the most recent ~30 years. 

Here we present new records of post-Soviet Union anthropogenic heavy metal  emissions (Bi, Cd, Cu, Pb, Sb, Zn) derived from three ice cores; from the Mongolian Altai (Tsambagarav ice core, period 1710-2009 AD) and the Siberian Altai (two Belukha ice cores, period 1680-2018 AD), covering a large regional footprint of emissions. The major source region of air pollution arriving at the Altai is primarily the territory of the FSU except for the eastern-most Siberian parts. Heavy metal concentrations at ultra-trace levels in the studied ice cores were analysed using inductively coupled plasma sector-field mass spectrometry (ICP-SF-MS). These records were complemented with new heavy metal emission estimates based on the available inventory data (1975-2015 AD) to derive a robust reconstruction of recent FSU heavy metal emissions. Consistent with the emission estimates, ice-core concentrations of Cd, Cu, Pb, Sb, Zn during the 2010s correspond to 20-40% of the maximum values in the 1970s and are comparable to their 1940s-1950s levels. A similar magnitude was also estimated for the decrease in Bi between 1975 and 2015, however, ice-core concentrations do not show a substantial downward trend.

How to cite: Eichler, A., Nalivaika, P., Jenk, T., Singer, T., Kakareka, S., Kukharchyk, T., Eyrikh, S., Papina, T., Plach, A., and Schwikowski, M.: Recent heavy metal pollution from the territory of the former Soviet Union (FSU) – ice core records and emission estimates, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-12385, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-12385, 2023.