The European Commission selects an IDAEA article as a reference work of the environmental crisis

The paper Atmospheric deposition of semivolatile organic pollutants in European high mountains: Sources, settling and chemical degradation, published in Science of the Total Environment, has been selected by the European Commission in the blog Science for Environment Policy as a reference work of the environmental crisis in 2021.

The article, authored by Pilar Fernández, Barend L. van Drooge, Lourdes Arellano and Joan Grimalt, from the Geochemistry and Pollution group, demonstrates the accumulation of semi-volatile organic chemical pollutants, such as flame retardants or insecticides, in European mountain ranges. This result implies that these pollutants can be found far away from the emission sources. These compounds are considered to be toxic, and recent evidence suggests that the release of semi-volatile chemical pollutants in the polar and alpine regions is happening due to the rise of the temperature in those remote areas. This study seeks to understand the relevance of each of the removal processes and to identify any influential alpine-specific variables.

Original paper
European Commission summary

A rugged Alpine mountain ridge. Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons

IDAEA-CSIC Communication