Abstract
Large scale transport pathways for atmospheric gaseous mercury emitted from surrounding source regions to reach the Alert sampling site located at the Northwest Territories of Canada between August 1992 and August 1993 were investigated. The 12-month atmospheric mercury data set comprises blank-corrected total gaseous mercury (TGM) concentrations collected on gold-coated sand traps during one-week long sampling intervals. For TGM concentrations above the 12-month mean TGM level, the analysis reveals regions in Eastern Europe (close to East Germany and Poland), areas on Northeastern America in Canada (Northwest Territories), and central Siberia of the former U.S.S.R. Identification of the physical locations of the emission sources was limited by the temporal resolution of weekly averaged data; however, major atmospheric pathways of mercury transport to the Arctic were successfully resolved. The objective of this note is to demonstrate that the potential source contribution function could be applied to resolve the sources and recover transport pathways of atmospheric mercury over a large scale.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 101-107 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2000 |
Funding
The authors acknowledge Mr. Olson of the Canadian Atmospheric Environment Services (AES) for supplying trajectories used in the PSCF calculation. Drs Steve Lindberg and Hong Zhang of Environmental Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory reviewed the draft and made invaluable suggestions to the revision. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by the Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corp. for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract number DE-AC05-96OR22464. This is publication number 4872, Environmental Sciences Division (ESD), Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Keywords
- + receptor models
- Arctic mercury
- Atmospheric transport
- Sources