The article discussed that as ice melts, chemicals such as bromine are released into the atmosphere, which in turn react with sunlight to result in a bromine explosion. The bromine explosion turns gaseous mercury into a pollutant that can deposit on the land and sea.
The article provides a solid base for a factual article on bromine explosions in the Artic but ultimately leaves out crucial facts to understand the science of the ice melt, release of bromine, ozone depletion, and deposit of mercury. The article should have described the man-made mechanism for ozone depletion, 2O3 à 3O2 by means of bromine. Overall, the article does not provide enough factual information for a reader to understand the journal article’s findings.
DGR News Service Article: http://dgrnewsservice.org/2012/03/03/arctic-ice-melt-may-cause-bromine-explosion/
NASA Article: http://airbornescience.jpl.nasa.gov/campaign/bromex
A bit surprised that the term "bromine explosion" was from the study and not just a journalistic embellishment.
ReplyDeleteDoes the article discuss the source of mercury that is available for the reaction with bromine?
ReplyDeleteI'm curious if the rate of bromine that's released into the atmosphere fluctuates when the rate of ice melt speeds up or slows down, which is likely a seasonal pattern. If there are times when bromine release is at its worse, what are the conditions versus when ice melt goes at a slower pace?
ReplyDeleteI guess that the rate of bromine releasing fluctuates because of seasonal temperature changing, but I'm not sure. Maybe they explained it in other papers.
DeleteThe Bromine release itself is a seasonal pattern, due to the required sunlight in the reaction mechanism, so these events are observed frequently after polar sunrise.
DeleteBecause the bromine release is actually coming out of the snow pack and not just out of the sea ice, the current research is focusing on factors that influence the chemical composition of the snow that releases bromine. Sea Ice melt is an issue because cracks in the ice can allow for open water to be present, which causes the airborne transport and deposition of salts from the ocean onto the snow. This is thought to be a major source of the Halides within the snow pack, which can be released in the bromine explosion mechanism.
I think it might be possible that the author decided not to include any technical mechanisms in their article because it might have deterred viewers from actually reading it.
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ReplyDeleteI would like it if the article gave more information on how the bromine explosion affects mercury deposition.
ReplyDeleteHey everyone, here is another great paper on the "bromine explosion." The author, Dr. Kerri Pratt spoke at our EHS 601 class last year. This is a little clip from here article, "In particular, the reaction of bromine atoms with gaseous elemental mercury, which is transported from the mid-latitudes, leads to toxic mercury deposition to Arctic ecosystems6. With climate change, multi-year sea ice is being replaced with first-year sea ice and expanding areas of open ocean8, changing the precipitation in the Arctic. An increasing fraction of first-year sea ice covered by an acidic snowpack influenced by atmospheric processing will probably lead to more prevalent Br2 production in the Arctic. The complex interactions and climate system feedbacks between the atmosphere, ocean, sea ice and snowpack influence halogen activation, ozone depletion and mercury deposition to ecosystems in ways that we are just beginning to understand in the changing Arctic system."
ReplyDeleteThe article can be previewed through the UM library online by using the article search and pasting the title in, Photochemical production of molecular bromine in Arctic surface snowpacks.
This article seemed to be a decent enough explanation of the issues being studied in the Arctic, with some obvious gaps in logic. Just saying the decrease in sea ice leads to release of chemicals is kind of a "hand wavy" way to explain what is going on without getting to far into the scientific details, but it gets the point across.Overall, I think it was a decent article summarizing the BROMEX study, but did not dig far into the details of climate effects on the Arctic.
ReplyDeleteI am curious about how the bromine explosion is formed and how it will affect the environment and people's lives.
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ReplyDeleteI agree that there is not enough factual information for the reader to really understand how the process of a "bromine explosion" occurs. The article should have used more scientific terms and formulas, instead of just a basic overview. The DGR News Article did not add much of their own thoughts or much of anything to the article, it was basically just a summary of what NASA already said in simpler terms. However, I found it interesting that the "bromine explosions" can turn gaseous mercury into a land and sea pollutant. I know that the abundance of mercury in fish is harmful to human health, I wonder if bromine alone can affect fish to the point where they could harm human health also by consuming them. Lastly, what I found frightening was the statement by NASA that read, "In a practical view, tropospheric (the air the we breath) ozone and mercury are toxic to people and wildlife." This statement was a real eye-opener for me to think that the air we breathe every second that is vital to our existence is toxic to our bodies and health. Major air remediation plans need to be in effect if we as humans want to continue our existence here on earth.
ReplyDeleteI had a few questions that the initial article didnt answer:
ReplyDelete- Have these explosions happened since they were discovered 20 years ago or is this only the second occurrence?
- If they have happened before, have they been getting progressively worse?
- Are bromine explosions periodic or frequent?
- Have they occurred anywhere else on earth?
- Is this phenomenon linked directly to climate change?
Also, because there is often biomagnification of mercury, will there be any lasting affects on the local wildlife?
I thought that the article was free of bias and did a good job of summarizing the science, but I thought they could present more details.
This article seemed to be a bit frustrating to read. As you pointed out, the lack of scientific information within it is disappointing. Another thing that bothered me, as John pointed out, was the fact that they used the term "bromine explosion."
ReplyDeleteUnreacted Bromide within the snow pack generally comes from airborne salt aerosols from the ocean. Once in the snow pack, it undergoes many reactions to become molecular bromine which is released into the atmosphere. Molecular bromine in the atmosphere breaks down ozone from the reactions that we learned in class.
The article doesn't talk about bromine's reactions with any other atoms/molecules than mercury. This leads me to the suspicion that the author decided to mainly focus on the most toxic chemical within the reactions to try to strike fear within the readers.
The term "bromine explosions" seem pretty vague. It would have been nice to have a more s
ReplyDeleteSpecific definition of an explosion. Also, a diagram or description of the scientific process of bromine release from ice would be helpful.
ReplyDeleteI may be posting a bit late, but a point of curiosity for me was what chemicals other than bromine would be released from the ice melting process. Would bromine be a major constituent in ice?
ReplyDeleteI also agree that more scientific details such as mechanisms would be a nice addition to the article.