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Abstract
During a marine research expedition in 1983 in the Baltic Sea area air samples were collected for the analysis of several organic and inorganic pollutants. The aim of the expedition was to obtain information on the airborne load in the sea as well as to measure the concentrations of the pollutants far away from source areas. In this paper the background concentrations of the primarily traffic originated aromatic hydrocarbons benzene, toluene and xylenes will be presented.
The concentrations of benzene were from 0.2 to 2μg/m3, of toluene between 0.4–3μg/m3, of m-xylene 0.02–0.60μg/m3 while the concentrations of o-xylene were 0.01–0.1 μg/m3. The concentrations did not depend too much on the origin (continental/sea type) of the air masses. A weak minimum in the concentrations of the measured hydrocarbons was noticed in the central Baltic Sea area. When comparing lead concentrations in fine particles (< 2.5 μm) with those of benzene, toluene and m-xylene some coincidence between them could be observed.