What is it about?
Mercury is a dangerous pollutant in the environment, which can accumulate to potentially risky levels in fish. We analyzed measurements of mercury in the Northern Hemisphere atmosphere, detecting a 10% decline in concentrations between 2005 and 2020. Using several modelling approaches, we attribute this decline to declining emissions of mercury from human-driven sources.
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Why is it important?
Because the atmosphere is well-mixed and mercury can travel long distances, atmospheric mercury concentrations serve as an important indicator for how much mercury humans are releasing to the environment. There is an international treaty devoted to addressing mercury pollution, the UN Minamata Convention, which currently has 151 parties. The declining atmospheric mercury trends suggest that international efforts to reduce mercury emissions are working, although more research is needed to understand which emissions sources are responsible for the decline.
Perspectives
This article was born out of the paradox that bottom-up emissions inventories estimate increasing anthropogenic emissions over the last twenty years, while most of the measurement stations show declines. Our analysis shows that the emissions inventories are not compatible with the observations. We hope that more studies will look into why there is a gap between bottom-up and top-down estimates in mercury emissions trends!
Ari Feinberg
IQF-CSIC
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Unexpected anthropogenic emission decreases explain recent atmospheric mercury concentration declines, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2401950121.
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