Gaseous elemental mercury measurements of boundary layer air made by a Tekran 2537 during the SIPEX II voyage of the Aurora Australis, 2012

Breaks in dataset occur when calibrations were run on instrument (every 24-48 hours, when weather was permitting), when lamp voltage had to be adjusted, or an Argon leak was detected and fixed (instrument has to be turned off when no carrier gas connected). Breaks in the dataset are recorded in the...

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Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: AADC (originator), AU/AADC > Australian Antarctic Data Centre, Australia (resourceProvider)
Format: Dataset
Language:unknown
Published: Australian Ocean Data Network
Subjects:
AMD
Online Access:https://researchdata.ands.org.au/gaseous-elemental-mercury-australis-2012/685488
https://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/SIPEX_II_Mercury_Air
http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/portal/download_file.cfm?file_id=3861
https://secure3.aad.gov.au/proms/public/projects/report_project_public.cfm?project_no=4032
http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/metadata/citation.cfm?entry_id=SIPEX_II_Mercury_Air
Description
Summary:Breaks in dataset occur when calibrations were run on instrument (every 24-48 hours, when weather was permitting), when lamp voltage had to be adjusted, or an Argon leak was detected and fixed (instrument has to be turned off when no carrier gas connected). Breaks in the dataset are recorded in the scanned logbooks, all times are in UTC. Variability in wind direction and ship position caused exhaust smoke from ship to sometimes blow in front of sample line, causing artificial peaks in total mercury measurements. The mercury dataset is to be interpreted in coordination with wind direction data (from an anemometer attached to sample inlet or from the ships own underway data) in order to detect contamination of the sample with exhaust plume. A significant break in data collection occurred between 25/10/2012 and 28/10/2012 when the photodiode on the instrument became faulty. Lamp voltage and intensity controls were adjusted and data collection resumed with an altered lamp circuit board (the instrument was run with a fixed lamp voltage of 9.5 V). Raw data collected from 28/10/2012 is still valid. Instrument description: Gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) was measured at five minute intervals. GEM was collected and analysed on two parallel gold traps. While GEM was collected on one gold trap, the mercury on the other traps was simultaneously being thermally desorbed and detected by a cold vapour atomic fluorescence spectrometer. The Tekran was calibrated approximately every 24 - 48 hours using an internal Hg permeation source. The internal calibration source was checked prior to shipping the instrument to Australia using an external Hg source. The internal calibration source will be verified upon return of the instrument. Instrument Setup: This instrument was sampling from a weather protected inlet positioned ~3 m off the front port side of the Monkey Deck of the Aurora Australis, directly above the bridge. The 35m heated Teflon sample line end and filter is contained within the "Ned Kelly", a large (~30 cm diameter) stainless steel can which protects against rain, snow, sea spray and major impacts. This sample line ran 25m down to the Tekran instrument which was located in a the Met-Lab. Ar (99.999% purity) was fed into the MetLab via quarter inch Teflon tubing from the oxygen store on the Monkey deck. A 2D R.M. Young (model 5305-AQ) anemometer was also deployed at the same elevation on the aft side of the sample inlet. The anemometer was oriented with zero degrees pointed directly forward of the ship. Mean Wind speed and direction were captured using Campbell Scientific CR1000 datalogger at five-minute intervals. The files included in this dataset are the raw outputs from the Tekran 2537. They include headers, though not always at the top of the file, because headers are only written when the instrument is started or after recalibration. Also included are scanned log books containing meteorological observations, maintenance notes, and when adjustments were made to the sample line (which alters anemometer data).