Metals and metalloids in precipitation collected during CHINARE campaign from Shanghai, China, to Zhongshan Station, Antarctica: Spatial variability and source identification

Metals and metalloids in continental precipitation have been widely observed, but the data over open oceans are still very limited. Investigation of metals and metalloids in marine precipitation is of great significance to understand global transport of these elements in the atmosphere and their input fluxes to the oceans. So shipboard sampling of precipitation was conducted during a Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition campaign from Shanghai, China, to Zhongshan Station, East Antarctica, and 22 samples (including 17 rainfall and 5 snowfall events) were collected and analyzed for concentrations of Pb, Ni, Cr, Cu, Co, Hg, As, Cd, Sb, Se, Zn, Mn, and Ti. Results show that concentrations of both metals and metalloids vary considerably along the cruise, with higher concentrations at coastal sites and lower values on the south Indian Ocean. Although only soluble fractions were determined for elements, concentrations in this study are generally comparable to the reported values of marine rain. Enrichment factor analysis shows that most of metals and metalloids are enriched versus crustal sources, even in the samples collected from remote south Indian Ocean. In addition, metals and metalloids in precipitation are also very enriched above sea-salt abundance, indicating that impacts of sea-salt aerosols on their concentrations are negligible. Main sources of metals and metalloids were explored with the aid of multivariate statistical analyses. The results show that human emissions have far-reaching distribution, which may exert an important influence on the solubility of elements in precipitation. This investigation provides valuable information on spatial variation and possible sources of trace elements in precipitation over the open oceans corresponding to understudied region.