Central Antarctica: Atmospheric Chemical Composition and Atmospheric Transport

Central Antarctica, by virtue of its remoteness and the lack of local anthropogenic pollution sources, can probably be considered the cleanest location on earth. It is a true pristine background environment in the most fundamental sense. Indeed, it may be the last true pristine background environment. Yet, airborne materials of anthropogenic origin are detected there, albeit at very small concentrations, thanks to long-range transport and mixing processes in the atmosphere. The Antarctic troposphere plays an important role in global climate because it links the global atmosphere and oceans with the Antarctic ice sheet and stratosphere. Tropospheric transport processes occur on fairly short time scales, of the order of days to weeks; whereas stratospheric processes (e.g., interhemispheric exchange processes) may occur on the order of years.