A special initiative was run by the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) Network to provide atmospheric data on a range of emerging chemicals of concern and candidate and new persistent organic pollutants in the Group of Latin America and Caribbean (GRULAC) region. Regional-scale data for a range of flame retardants (FRs) including polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), organophosphate esters (OPEs), and a range of alternative FRs (novel FRs) are reported over 2 years of sampling with low detection frequencies of the novel FRs. Atmospheric concentrations of the OPEs were an order of magnitude higher than all other FRs, with similar profiles at all sites. Regional-scale background concentrations of the poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), including the neutral PFAS (n-PFAS) and perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs), and the volatile methyl siloxanes (VMS) are also reported. Ethyl perfluorooctane sulfonamide (EtFOSA) was detected at highly elevated concentrations in Brazil and Colombia, in line with the use of the pesticide sulfluramid in this region. Similar concentrations of the perfluoroalkyl sulfonates (PFAS) were detected throughout the GRULAC region regardless of location type, and the VMS concentrations in air increased with the population density of sampling locations. This is the first report of atmospheric concentrations of the PFAAs and VMS from this region.

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Abstract. Systematic data quality issues may occur at various stages of the data generation process. They may affect large fractions of observational datasets and remain largely undetected with standard data quality control. This study investigates the effects of such undetected data quality issues on the results of climatological analyses. For this purpose, we quality controlled daily observations of manned weather stations from the Central Andean area with a standard and an enhanced approach. The climate variables analysed are minimum and maximum temperature, and precipitation. About 40 % of the observations are inappropriate for the calculation of monthly temperature means and precipitation sums due to data quality issues. These quality problems undetected with the standard quality control method strongly affect climatological analyses, since they reduce the correlation coefficients of station pairs, deteriorate the performance of data homogenization methods, increase the spread of individual station trends, and significantly bias regional temperature trends. Our findings indicate that undetected data quality issues are included in important and frequently used observational datasets, and hence may affect a high number of climatological studies. It is of utmost importance to apply comprehensive and adequate data quality control approaches on manned weather station records in order to avoid biased results and large uncertainties.

Methane (CH 4 ) mole fractions from the large semiseasonal Llanos de Moxos wetlands (∼70,000 km 2 ) in northern Bolivia were measured by aircraft flights and ground sampling during early March 2019 (late wet season). Daily fluxes of CH 4 determined from the measurements using box models and inverse modeling were between 168 (± 50) and 456 (± 145) mg CH 4 ⋅m −2 ⋅d −1 for the areas overflown, very high compared with those of previous Amazon basin studies. If the seasonality of the CH 4 emissions is comparable to other parts of the Amazon Basin, the region could contribute as much as 8% of annual Amazonian CH 4 emissions.