TY - JOUR
T1 - Role of the stratosphere in the global mercury cycle
AU - Saiz-Lopez, Alfonso
AU - Cuevas, Carlos A.
AU - Acuña, A. Ulises
AU - Añel, Juan A.
AU - Mahajan, Anoop S.
AU - de la Torre, Laura
AU - Feng, Wuhu
AU - Dávalos, Juan Z.
AU - Roca-Sanjuán, Daniel
AU - Kinnison, Douglas E.
AU - Carmona-García, Javier
AU - Fernandez, Rafael P.
AU - Li, Qinyi
AU - Sonke, Jeroen E.
AU - Feinberg, Aryeh
AU - Gómez Martín, Juan Carlos
AU - Villamayor, Julián
AU - Zhang, Peng
AU - Zhang, Yanxu
AU - Blaszczak-Boxe, Christopher S.
AU - Travnikov, Oleg
AU - Wang, Feiyue
AU - Bieser, Johannes
AU - Francisco, Joseph S.
AU - Plane, John M.C.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2025 the Authors, some rights reserved.
PY - 2025/1/10
Y1 - 2025/1/10
N2 - Mercury (Hg) is a global pollutant with substantial risks to human and ecosystem health. By upward transport in tropical regions, mercury enters into the stratosphere, but the contribution of the stratosphere to global mercury dispersion and deposition remains unknown. We find that between 5 and 50% (passing through the 400-kelvin isentropic surface and tropopause, respectively) of the mercury mass deposited on Earth’s surface is chemically processed in the lower stratosphere. Our results show the stratosphere as a unique chemical environment where elemental mercury is efficiently converted to long-lived oxidized species. Subsequent downward transport contributes substantially to the oxidized mercury burden in the troposphere. The results show that the stratosphere facilitates the global dispersion of large amounts of mercury from polluted source regions to Earth’s remote environments. We find that stratospheric transport is as important as tropospheric transport in interhemispheric mercury dispersion. Future projections suggest that expected changes in atmospheric circulation will increase the transport of mercury into the stratosphere.
AB - Mercury (Hg) is a global pollutant with substantial risks to human and ecosystem health. By upward transport in tropical regions, mercury enters into the stratosphere, but the contribution of the stratosphere to global mercury dispersion and deposition remains unknown. We find that between 5 and 50% (passing through the 400-kelvin isentropic surface and tropopause, respectively) of the mercury mass deposited on Earth’s surface is chemically processed in the lower stratosphere. Our results show the stratosphere as a unique chemical environment where elemental mercury is efficiently converted to long-lived oxidized species. Subsequent downward transport contributes substantially to the oxidized mercury burden in the troposphere. The results show that the stratosphere facilitates the global dispersion of large amounts of mercury from polluted source regions to Earth’s remote environments. We find that stratospheric transport is as important as tropospheric transport in interhemispheric mercury dispersion. Future projections suggest that expected changes in atmospheric circulation will increase the transport of mercury into the stratosphere.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85215071676
U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.ads1459
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.ads1459
M3 - Article
C2 - 39772680
AN - SCOPUS:85215071676
SN - 2375-2548
VL - 11
JO - Science advances
JF - Science advances
IS - 2
M1 - eads1459
ER -