The Persistent Pollutants Project
The Persistent Pollutants Project is a community-driven initiative that harnesses the power of everyday people to track and address pollution in real-time. By mapping the spread of black carbon (BC) and other pollutants, including microplastics, the project aims to identify pollution hotspots and empower local communities with actionable data. By bridging science and community action, the project will not only help visualize pollution spread, but also drive tangible solutions. Cutting black carbon emissions is one of the quickest and cost-effective ways to progress climate targets, improve people’s health, and boost economies.
– What is black carbon? Tiny (2.5 microns) dark particles from the burning of fossil fuels and biomass, often the by-product of incomplete combustion for the former and open agricultural burning and forest fires for the latter.
– What does black carbon do to the atmosphere? Heats it up. To date, BC emissions have led to 0.11 degrees Celsius of global warming. BC is the second largest contributor to climate change, after carbon dioxide, but, fortunately, has a short residence time in the atmosphere when compared with carbon dioxide. That means it’s a solvable problem in the climate crisis.
– What does black carbon do to the snow/ice, globally? When BC particles land on snow and ice, they darken the surface, absorb sunlight, and cause faster melting than otherwise would occur.
– Why study black carbon? Reducing BC can improve human health, by improving air quality, and the health of snow and ice, globally, to help regulate the climate. Reducing BC emissions can lead to rapid cooling benefits for the planet. Without the data, it is just speculation as to where the greatest impacts are being felt. We can help change this – but we need the data.
Sampling Locations (To Date)
Mountain glacier sampling
Felicity Aston and the Before It’s Gone team: Iceland, Svalbard
Ricardo Peña: Mt. Everest
Ulyana Peña: Aconcagua (Andes), Mont Blanc (Alps), Kilimanjaro (Tanzania, Africa), Mt. Cook (New Zealand)
Lucy Westlake: K2 (Pakistan), Chimbaroza (Ecuador), Cascades (Mt. Baker)
Ice sheet sampling
Ayuka Kawakami: Greenland (west to east)
Matthieu Tordeur: Greenland (north to south)
Darren Slevin and Natham Lumb: coming soon (November 2025) in Antarctica
Sea ice sampling
Ulyana Peña: PONANT expedition to West Antarctica and Northeast Greenland with The Explorers Club; St. Lawrence Gulf with PONANT Science
Felicity Aston and the BIG team: Canadian Arctic
Ice cap sampling
Ulyana Peña: Baffin Island (Canadian Arctic) and Vatnajokull (Iceland), with Felicity and the BIG team
How It All Started: Testimonial from a participatory scientist volunteer in the Himalaya in 2014, for Dr. Ulyana Horodyskyj Peña’s PhD project:
“I had the privilege to climb with Ulyana and help her retrieve scientific instruments in the glacial lakes of the Himalayas. Unsure of what I was going to encounter, I had an extraordinary experience that I will never forget. We hiked through deep snow and over loose glacier rock to retrieve instruments she had placed there months before. We dug through frozen dirt, walked out onto lakes covered in ice and pulled submerged instruments from frigid water. Despite the hard work and extremely high elevations, Ulyana’s dogged determination and her penchant to have fun never faltered. Ulyana was a humble guide and great friend who inspired me to dream big and never let any obstacle, no matter how formidable, stand in my way.”
Joe Lazzaretti, participatory scientist volunteer, with Sherpa-Scientist trainee, Nawang Sherpa