Environmental context. Impurities deposited on glaciers can significantly accelerate their melting. This study investigated the spatial variability of concentrations of impurities across three glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau, revealing a pronounced concentration increase with decreasing altitude and the influence of local emissions. To accurately evaluate the potential for glacier melt, it is necessary to account for local emissions and altitude-dependent variations of impurities in individual glaciers. (Image credit: Yixi Liu)

Environmental context: Perfluorinated compounds are emerging organic contaminants recently detected in various environmental matrices and remain largely unregulated. Among these matrices, air is the least studied one due to analytical challenges. This review explores emerging trends in analysing perfluorinated compounds in air with the use of bioindicators and highlights future research needs to address existing gaps in detection and monitoring.