Environmental Engineering Reference
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ification from distant sources could be detected in the European mainland Arctic, primarily
due to the vulnerability of this region that results from its underlying geology. No such ef-
fects attributable to low deposition from distant sources could be detected in eastern Siber-
ia or Arctic North America, but in both these regions, very little data were available. The
report documented the temporal extent of the effects to vegetation and freshwater ecosys-
tems from within Arctic sources, particularly from the nonferrous metal smelters at Nikel,
Zapolyarny and Monchegorsk on the Kola Peninsula and at Norilsk in the Taymyr region.
In these regions, the visible effects were largely attributed to the direct impact of sulphur
dioxide and to heavy metals (co-emitted from the smelters) accumulating in soils and water
bodies.
The second AMAP assessment of acidification in the Arctic was published in 2006.
This report found that 1990 emissions data suggested that critical levels for soils were ex-
ceeded at that time over large areas. However, by the time the 2006 assessment had been
completed, emissions of sulphur dioxide from sources within the Arctic had decreased by
about 23% since 1992, most of which was attributable to declines of as much as 82% from
the Kola Peninsula smelters. The reductions were much lower at Norilsk. These declines
were in part due to new emission control procedures but also to a decline in Russian in-
dustrial activity following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was concluded that despite
the dramatic local effects caused by the Arctic emission sources, most of the acidifying
substances reaching the Arctic as a whole are arriving by long-range atmospheric transport
from lower-latitude sources, mostly in Europe and North America and increasingly from
Asia. Forest fires appear to be a growing source of Arctic air pollution, which includes
acidifying substances and the climate-forcing agent black carbon. This source is likely to
increase in significance as our global climate continues to warm. However, circumpolar
monitoring data from such remote stations as Alert (Ellesmere Island, Canada) and Zep-
pelin (Svalbard) indicate that the overall background levels of sulphate and sulphur diox-
ide in Arctic air are decreasing in summer and winter, indicating that national and interna-
tional controls are being effective. At the same time, the amount of Arctic haze-inducing
substances arriving over Alaska and the western Canadian Arctic appears to have been in-
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