Modelling of Atmospheric Mercury Emission, Transport, Transformation and Deposition in North America

A modelling study was conducted to explore the emission, transport, transformation and deposition behaviour of atmospheric Hg. A detailed natural Hg emission model was developed to estimate the natural Hg emissions from soil, water and vegetation. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) Hg model system was improved by incorporating the detailed treatment of natural Hg emissions, adopting boundary conditions from a global Hg model (Seigneur et al., 2004) and including the calculation of the dry deposition velocity of elemental Hg. The natural Hg emission model and the improved CMAQ-Hg model were validated with some measurements and then applied to North America for a whole year (2002). A detailed natural Hg emission model was developed in this study. This model made use of detailed soil Hg concentration measurements, meteorological data and soil conditions to estimate Hg emissions from soil, water and vegetation. The influence of snow cover and low temperature was also considered in the model. This model was then applied to simulate one-year natural Hg emissions in North America in 2002. The modelled results, compared to some reported natural Hg emission measurements, demonstrated a strong simulation ability. The spatial and temporal variations of emission fluxes were examined through numerical simulations. A pronounced diurnal cycle and a seasonal cycle were found in the emissions from most land uses. Compared with summer, natural Hg emission was significantly limited in winter. Simulation results showed that about 229 metric tons of total natural Hg