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Atmospheric aerosols over polar regions have attracted considerable attention for their pivotal effects on climate change. In this study, temporospatial variations in single-particle-based depolarization ratios (delta: s-polarized component divided by the total backward scattering intensity) were studied over the Northwest Pacific and the Arctic Ocean using an optical particle counter with a depolarization module. The delta value of aerosols was 0.06 +/- 0.01 for the entire observation period, 61 +/- 10% lower than the observations for coastal Japan (0.12 +/- 0.02) (Pan et al. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 2016, 16, 9863-9873) and inland China (0.19 +/- 0.02) (Tian et al. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 2018, 18, 18203-18217) in summer. The volume concentration showed two dominant size modes at 0.9 and 2 mu m. The supermicrometer particles were mostly related to sea-salt aerosols with a delta value of 0.09 over marine polar areas, similar to 22% larger than in the low-latitude region because of differences in chemical composition and dry air conditions. The delta values for fine particles (<1 mu m) were 0.05 +/- 0.1, 50% lower than inland anthropogenic pollutants, mainly because of the complex mixtures of submicrometer sea salts. High particle concentrations in the Arctic Ocean could mostly be attributed to the strong marine emission of sea salt associated with deep oceanic cyclones, whereas long-range transport pollutants from the continent were among the primary causes of high particle concentrations in the Northwest Pacific region.