Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Overview of mercury measurements in the Antarctic troposphere

• Main Authors: A. Dommergue, F. Sprovieri, N. Pirrone, R. Ebinghaus, S. Brooks, J. Courteaud, C. P. Ferrari
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: Antarctic; Arctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.593.5621; http://hal.inria.fr/docs/00/55/43/05/PDF/acp-10-3309-2010.pdf

Abstract. Polar ecosystems are considered to be the last pristine environments of the earth relatively uninfluenced by human activities. Antarctica in particular, compared to the Arctic is considered to be even less affected by any kind of anthropogenic influences. Once contaminants reach the Polar Regions, their lifetime in the troposphere de-pends on local removal processes. Atmospheric mercury, in particular, has unique characteristics that include long-range transport to Polar Regions and the transformation to more toxic and water-soluble compounds that may poten-tially become bioavailable. These chemical-physical prop-erties have placed mercury on the priority list of an increas-ing number of International, European and National conven-tions, and agreements, aimed at the protection of the ecosys-