How are anthropogenic (human) mercury emissions transported through the atmosphere?
• Because mercury evaporates relatively easily, mercury emissions can be transported on wind currents, either as a vapour or bound to particles. • Elemental or metallic mercury vapour can circulate in the atmosphere for a year or more and can travel long distances. In contrast, oxidized or reactive mercury has an atmospheric residence time of less than two weeks due to its solubility in water and its reactivity. • As a result, mercury emissions from industrial point sources might remain localized in the environment, or might be transported regionally and even globally. In addition, mercury is thought to participate in a global distillation phenomenon that transfers mercury and other chemical emissions from equatorial, subtropical and temperate regions to the polar regions via the “grasshopper effect”. When this phenomenon takes place, the emitted substance reenters the atmosphere by volatilizing after initial deposition and continues over time to “hop” through the environment until the
