Time-Series Record of Ambient Platinum Group Elements over a Remote Himalayan Station: Insights over the Baseline Estimate to Judge Future Changes

Platinum group element (PGE) is among the emerging airborne contaminants mainly emitting from automobile catalysts. The ambient PGE concentration in Asia is expected to rise due to an increase in vehicle sales over the last two decades. Of all the Asian countries, the automobile industry in India has grown at a spectacular rate (> 50% in the last 10 years) and is expected to become a hotspot of global PGE contamination. However, the Indian subcontinent can be regarded as a “white spot” on the global PGE contamination map, indicating the presence of very limited field data. Here, we report the annual time-series record of PGE concentrations of the airborne particulate matter