A simulation study of atmospheric mercury and its deposition in the Great Lakes

Grant, Shanique; Kim, Myoungwoo; Lin, Peng; Crist, Kevin; Ghosh, Saikat; Kotamarthi, V. R.

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2014.05.033

Cited by 11 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…In addition, because ambient concentration is linked to dry deposition flux, atmospheric concentration can inform estimates of this significant pathway for mercury loading to the Great Lakes watershed. 28,95 (Indeed, decreases in ambient concentrations and dry deposition may help explain observed trends in fish concentrations, even when wet deposition trends have been inconsistent.) However, in the context of policy evaluation, several additional factors may need to be considered: wet deposition measurements can be less costly to deploy, maintain, and calibrate, and have larger (temporally and spatially) existing monitoring records which may facilitate the establishment of a baseline.…”

Section: Discussion and Implications For Policy Monitoring And Evaluamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the Laurentian Great Lakes region, where mercury remains a concern for human and wildlife health, [23][24][25] many community stakeholders in mercury management (including Indigenous communities and recreational anglers) are interested in whether these policies translate into decreases in atmospheric loadings of mercury to aquatic ecosystems, and ultimately, decreases in dietary human exposure from fish. 26,27 As recent source attribution modelling studies have highlighted the importance of both local/regional and global anthropogenic sources for deposition in the Great Lakes basin, 25,[28][29][30] this question is important not only for evaluating the effectiveness of historical and future policy efforts in North America at protecting human health in this region, but also for evaluating the potential impact of prospective policy actions elsewhere in the world in response to the Minamata Convention.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding factors influencing the detection of mercury policies in modelled Laurentian Great Lakes wet deposition

Giang

Song

Muntean

et al. 2018

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts

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We used chemical transport modelling to better understand the extent to which policy-related anthropogenic mercury emissions changes (a policy signal) can be statistically detected in wet deposition measurements in the Great Lakes region on the subdecadal scale, given sources of noise. In our modelling experiment, we consider hypothetical regional (North American) and global (rest of the world) policy changes, consistent with existing policy efforts (Δglobal = -18%; Δregional = -30%) that divide an eight-year period. The magnitude of statistically significant (p < 0.1) pre- and post-policy period wet deposition differences, holding all else constant except for the policy change, ranges from -0.3 to -2.0% for the regional policy and -0.8 to -2.7% for the global policy. We then introduce sources of noise-trends and variability in factors that are exogenous to the policy action-and evaluate the extent to which the policy signals can still be detected. For instance, technology-related variability in emissions magnitude and speciation can shift the magnitude of differences between periods, in some cases dampening the policy effect. We have found that the interannual variability in meteorology has the largest effect of the sources of noise considered, driving deposition differences between periods to ±20%, exceeding the magnitude of the policy signal. However, our simulations suggest that gaseous elemental mercury concentration may be more robust to this meteorological variability in this region, and a stronger indicator of local/regional emissions changes. These results highlight the potential challenges of detecting statistically significant policy-related changes in Great Lakes wet deposition within the subdecadal scale.

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Section: Discussion and Implications For Policy Monitoring And Evaluamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding factors influencing the detection of mercury policies in modelled Laurentian Great Lakes wet deposition

Giang

Song

Muntean

et al. 2018

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts

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“…Urban locations with a greater number of nearby Hg emission sources will be affected differently than remote locations with more distant sources. Grant et al (2014) presented a model simulation for 2005 that suggested strong localized inputs to wet and dry Hg deposition in the southern Great Lakes region, closer to emissions sources. Cohen et al (2004Cohen et al ( , 2007 reported similar findings, with regional sources in the Ohio River valley contributing Hg deposited to the Great Lakes.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Geochemical legacies and the future health of cities: A tale of two neurotoxins in urban soils

Filippelli

Risch

Laidlaw

et al. 2015

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

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“…These results appear to be inconsistent with the best simulated GOM and PBM concentrations in the NEW_noOH case (see section 3.2). An evaluation of WRF simulated precipitation using Lu et al (2014) Mid-South US 249 0.23 Grant et al (2014) Great Lakes 62 0.72 Bieser et al (2014) Europe 230 36 0.91…”

Section: Hg Deposition Evaluation 331 Hg Wet Depositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Over the last decade, several chemical transport models (CTMs) have been modified to simulate atmospheric mercury. With a ''one-atmosphere'' approach, the Community Multiscale Air Quality model with Hg chemistry included (CMAQ-Hg; Bullock & Brehme, 2002) has been widely utilized in atmospheric Hg deposition studies (Bash et al, 2014;Bullock et al, 2008Bullock et al, , 2009Grant et al, 2014;Lin et al, 2007Lin et al, , 2012Myers et al, 2013;Pongprueksa et al, 2008;Sunderland et al, 2008;Vijayaraghavan et al, 2007;Zhang et al, 2012a). To accurately simulate Hg wet and dry deposition, it is essential to reproduce the observed atmospheric concentrations of GEM, GOM, and PBM.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of CMAQ Coupled With a State‐of‐the‐Art Mercury Chemical Mechanism (CMAQ‐newHg‐Br)

Mao

Driscoll

et al. 2018

J Adv Model Earth Syst

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Most regional three‐dimensional chemical transport models neglect gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) oxidation by bromine (Br) radicals and Br chemistry. In this study, the Community Multiscale Air Quality model with its default mercury module (CMAQ‐Hg) was modified by implementing a state‐of‐the‐art algorithm depicting Hg reactions coupled with Br chemistry (CMAQ‐newHg‐Br). Using CMAQ‐newHg‐Br with initial and boundary concentrations (ICs and BCs) from global model output, we conducted simulations for the northeastern United States over March–November 2010. Simulated GEM mixing ratios were predominantly influenced by BCs and hence reflected significant seasonal variation that was captured in the global model output as opposed to a lack of seasonal variation using CMAQ‐Hg's default constant BCs. Observed seasonal percentage changes (i.e., seasonal amplitude [=maximum – minimum] in percentage of the seasonal average) of gaseous oxidized mercury (GOM) and particulate bound mercury (PBM) were 76% and 39%, respectively. CMAQ‐newHg‐Br significantly improved the simulated seasonal changes in GOM and PBM to 43% and 23%, respectively, from 18% and 16% using CMAQ‐Hg. CMAQ‐newHg‐Br reproduced observed Hg wet deposition with a remarkably low fractional bias (FB; 0.4%) as opposed to a −56% to 19% FB for CMAQ‐Hg simulations. Simulated Hg dry deposition using CMAQ‐newHg‐Br excluding the GEM + OH reaction agreed well with studies using inferential methods and litterfall/throughfall measurements, and the discrepancy varied over 13%–42%. This study demonstrated the promising capability of CMAQ‐newHg‐Br to reproduce observed concentrations and seasonal variations of GEM, GOM and PBM, and Hg wet and dry deposition fluxes.

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A simulation study of atmospheric mercury and its deposition in the Great Lakes

Cited by 11 publications

References 31 publications

Understanding factors influencing the detection of mercury policies in modelled Laurentian Great Lakes wet deposition

Understanding factors influencing the detection of mercury policies in modelled Laurentian Great Lakes wet deposition

Geochemical legacies and the future health of cities: A tale of two neurotoxins in urban soils

Evaluation of CMAQ Coupled With a State‐of‐the‐Art Mercury Chemical Mechanism (CMAQ‐newHg‐Br)

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