Open AccessAn approach estimating bidirectional air‐surface exchange for gaseous elemental mercury at AMNet sites
Author(s) -
Wright L. Paige,
Zhang Leiming
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of advances in modeling earth systems
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.03
H-Index - 58
ISSN - 1942-2466
DOI - 10.1002/2014ms000367
Subject(s) - environmental science , atmospheric sciences , mercury (programming language) , deposition (geology) , canopy , elemental mercury , environmental chemistry , meteorology , chemistry , geology , geography , paleontology , organic chemistry , sediment , flue gas , computer science , programming language , archaeology
The bidirectional air‐surface exchange for gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) and existing measurements of the compensation points over a variety of canopy types are reviewed. Deposition and emission of GEM are dependent on several factors such as the type of canopy, temperature, season, atmospheric GEM concentrations, and meteorological conditions, with compensation points varying between 0.5 and 33 ng m −3 . Emissions tend to increase from the spring to summer seasons, as the GEM accumulates in the foliage of the vegetation. A strong dependence on solar radiation has been observed, with higher emissions under light conditions. A bidirectional air‐surface exchange flux model is proposed for estimating GEM fluxes at a two‐hourly time resolution for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program's, Atmospheric Mercury Network (AMNet) sites. Compared to the unidirectional dry deposition model used in Zhang et al. (2012), two additional parameters, stomatal and soil emission potential, were needed in the bidirectional model and were chosen based on knowledge gained in the literature review and model sensitivity test results. Application of this bidirectional model to AMNet sites have produced annual net deposition fluxes comparable to those estimated in Zhang et al. (2012) at the majority of the sites. In this study, the net GEM dry deposition has been estimated separately for each dominant land use type surrounding each site, and this approach is also recommended for future calculations for easy application of the results to assessments of the mercury effects on various ecosystems.