Mercury Pollution and the Artic Meltdown

As we’ve talked about in class, Arctic sea ice continually shifts from perennial to seasonal ice and is associated with the opening and closing sea-ice leads. Sea-ice leads are large transient channels of open water in the ice. These affect atmospheric and biogeochemical cycles in the Arctic.  Mercury and ozone are rapidly removed from the atmospheric boundary layer during the depletion events in the Arctic. As we’ve talked about in class, this is caused by destruction of ozone but along with this, oxidation of gaseous elemental mercury in the atmosphere occurs and subsequent deposition to snow and ice happens.

These ozone depletion events can change the oxidative capacity of the air by affecting atmospheric hydroxyl radical chemistry, whereas atmospheric mercury depletion events can increase the deposition of mercury to the Arctic, some of which can enter ecosystems through snowing and snowmelt. This convective forcing provides additional Hg (0) to the surface layer at a time of active depletion chemistry.

The original research paper presented these models to illustrate. Yellow boxes are periods when air masses crossed upwind areas of consolidated sea ice. Black boxes are periods when air-mass trajectories crossed open leads. The satellite images represent four typical sea-ice conditions that occurred during measurements

I thought this article was excellent. They explained the topic clearly while presenting context into the conversation of mercury deposit and the arctic meltdown. This article doesn’t seem to present a significant sort of bias and presents other experts’ opinions on the topic.  I thought it was interesting how the writer of the article presented information about the re-emission of mercury into the atmosphere; thus, pushing the idea that this research isn't conclusive and that this article is mostly for exposure on the topic.

While the article was short, it gave a great overview of the topic. It clearly explained that these are “preliminary” findings and that further research is necessary to make complete conclusions. I personally thought this is one of the better papers I’ve read and it gave clearer picture of the original research than the original paper did.

I give it an 8.5/10. While I didn’t think the models were necessary to understanding the paper, the piece doesn’t give any link to the original research and I had to take a significant amount of time looking for it. Ok, it wasn’t that hard. Also, Joel Blum from UM is quoted here! That's cool.  With bonus points included for UM reference,  I'll give it a 11/10. 

Note: You might need to use MLibrary to get the piece.

Article
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/toxic-mercury-pollution-may-rise-with-arctic-meltdown/

Original Publication
http://www.nature.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/nature/journal/v506/n7486/full/nature12924.html