Marine arctic fog: An accumulator of currently used pesticide

Coincident samples of arctic marine fog and air were found to contain the following pesticides, chlorpyril chlorothalonil, metolachlor, terbufos and trifluralin. The levels of the different pesticides in the fog ranged from 0.08 to 12 ng/L and for the air from < 0.1 to 5.0 pg/m3. Field derived air-water partition coefficients (Henryʹs law contstants-HLCs) were calculated from the paired air and water concentrations for chlorpyrifos and trifluralin. Comparisons of the field measured HLC values with laboratory determined HLCs (based on distilled water and on the fogwater itself) indicated that the pesticides were enriched in the field collected fogwater. The enrichments apwear to be predominantly caused by surface interaction processes. Concentrations of the pesticides in the fog were much higher than adjoining compartments of snow, ice, air, water or microlayer. Exchanges at these interfaces may be a common occurrence in the Arctic especially since fogs are common over much of the area.