Abstract
Studies over the last several decades have revealed that the chemical composition of organic matter in the atmosphere is astoundingly complex. The complex composition of atmospheric organic compounds reflects the variety of their sources—plant emissions, industrial and combustion effluents, agricultural sources, etc.—as well as secondary products that result from chemical and photochemical reactions in the troposphere. Some organic compounds are sufficiently stable to be transported far from their sources in continental regions to remote areas of the ocean or to other continents. Such long-range transport is clearly evident, for example, in the global distribution of high-molecular-weight chlorinated hydrocarbons. As this chapter shows, pesticide and PCB residues have been detected in air samples from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Furthermore, the pesticides measured in various organisms around the world—from fish and seals in the Antarctic to benthic amphipods in the Arctic Ocean—are ample proof that these compounds are being deposited far from their source and subsequently accumulated by marine organisms (Hargrave et al. 1988;Hidaka et al. 1983;Subramanian et al. 1986a, 1986b;Tanabe et al. 1984, Zell and Ballschmiter 1980).