Collaborative Research: Evaluating the Competing Impacts of Global Emissions Reductions and Climate Change on the Distribution and Retention of selected POPs in the Arctic Ocean

拟议研究的目标是更好地了解全球排放和气候变化如何影响北冰洋选定持久性有机污染物（POP）的分布，寿命和生物利用度。持久性有机污染物通过空气和水在全球范围内传播，通常具有高度的生物累积性，并能够在环境介质中循环，从而能够远距离迁移到北极等偏远地区。研究人员将使用一种建模方法，深入了解改变主要人为排放和海洋生物地球化学过程在控制北冰洋持久性有机污染物的命运和寿命方面的相对重要性。研究将侧重于两类化合物（多氟化合物- PFCs和多氯联苯- PCBs），它们具有不同的物理和化学特性，影响大气和海洋中的行为和反应。调查人员还将收集关于北冰洋多氯联苯和两种全氟辛烷磺酸（PFOS）和全氟辛酸（PFOA）深度分布的新数据。拟议的研究将涉及三个主要目标：1）量化多氯联苯和全氟化学品的全球和区域大气预算，包括相关的空间变化不确定性2）量化多氯联苯和全氟化学品在北冰洋的预算，包括大气沉积、河流流入和海洋循环的输入3）量化全氟辛酸、全氟辛烷磺酸和多氯联苯在北极的大气、海洋和河流输入的相对重要性，包括气候和排放的影响。
最终，该项目将提高对这些化合物如何到达北极的了解，并为环境管理提供信息。该项目的更广泛影响部分将有三个主要目标：（1）向《斯德哥尔摩公约》和其他关于持久性有机污染物的国际协定提供与政策有关的信息，以支持其对多氯联苯和全氟辛烷磺酸及相关化合物的控制措施的监测和评价工作;（2）通过为与环境可持续性有关的课程编写关于北极地区新出现的持久性有机污染物的案例研究，为可持续性教育提供信息;以及（3）培养下一代跨学科科学家（三个合作机构将各培养一名研究生）。

The goal of the proposed research is to better understand how changes in global emissions and climate are affecting the distribution, lifetime, and bioavailability of selected persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the Arctic Ocean. POPs travel globally in air and water, are often highly bioaccumulative, and have the ability to cycle among environmental media enabling long-range transport to remote regions such as the Arctic. The investigators will use a modeling approach to provide insight into the relative importance of changing primary anthropogenic emissions and oceanic biogeochemical processes in controlling the fate and lifetime of POPs in the Arctic Ocean. The research will focus on two classes of compounds (polyfluorinated compounds - PFCs - and polychlorinated biphenyls - PCBs) with contrasting physical and chemical properties affecting behavior and reactivity in the atmosphere and ocean. The investigators will also collect new data on depth profiles of PCBs and two PFCs - perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanate (PFOA) - in the Arctic Ocean. Three main objectives will be addressed in the proposed research:1) Quantify the global and regional atmospheric budget of PCBs and PFCs, including relevant spatially-varying uncertainties 2) Quantify the budget of PCBs and PFCs in the Arctic Ocean, including inputs from atmospheric deposition, riverine inflows, and ocean cycling 3) Quantify the relative importance of atmospheric, oceanic, and riverine inputs of PFOA, PFOS and PCBs to the Arctic, including the influence of climate and emissions. 
Ultimately this project will improve knowledge of how these compounds reach the Arctic and inform environmental management. The broader impacts component of the project will have three main goals: (1) Provide policy-relevant information to the Stockholm Convention and other international agreements on POPs to support monitoring and evaluation efforts for its controls on PCBs and PFOS and related compounds; (2) Inform sustainability education, by developing a case study on emerging POPs in the Arctic for courses relevant to environmental sustainability; and (3) train the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists (one graduate student will be trained at each of the three collaborating institutions).