Organic contaminant release from melting snow. 2. Influence of snow pack and melt characteristics.

Large reservoirs of organic contaminants in seasonal snowpack can be released in short pulses during spring snowmelt, potentially impacting the receiving ecosystems. Laboratory experiments using artificial snow spiked with organic target substances were conducted to investigate the behavior of six organic contaminants with widely variable distribution properties in melting snow. Whereas the influence of a chemical's equilibrium phase partitioning on the elution behavior is explored in a companion paper, we discuss here the impact of snow properties and melt features, including the snowpack depth, the temperature at the interface between soil and snow, the meltwater content the internal ice surface area, and the existence of distinct snow layers.

Organic contaminant release from melting snow. 1. Influence of chemical partitioning.

A melting snowpack can deliver organic contaminants to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the form of short and concentrated pulses. The mechanisms and kinetics of the underlying processes need to be understood to successfully integrate them into contaminant and water quality models. Controlled laboratory-based snowmelt experiments using artificially produced snow spiked with organic target contaminants reveal how chemical behavior during melting is dependent on the partitioning between the different phases within the bulk snow.