P21 Incorporating persistent organic pollutants (POPs) into comprehensive regional air quality models

Li, Rong, Utah State University

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have adverse effects on human health and the environment and can be transported through the atmosphere over long distances and deposited to sensitive ecosystems such as the Arctic and the Great Lakes. We have developed a multimedia regional fate and chemical transport modeling system for POPs by modifying and coupling a comprehensive regional air quality model with a combined soil and canopy model. This system takes into account the important physical and chemical processes related to POPs in the atmosphere, the soil, and vegetation surfaces, including emission, chemical reaction, gas-particle partitioning, transport, and deposition on regional and local scales. Using this modeling system, we quantified the contribution of different sources of toxaphene, including US soil residues, Mexican soil residues, and global background, to the contamination of the Great Lakes. We will describe the modeling system and discuss the results as well as challenges in simulating POPs with regional air quality models.