Improving Simulation of Gas-Particle Partitioning of Atmospheric Mercury Using CMAQ-newHg-Br v2

TY - JOUR

T1 - Improving Simulation of Gas-Particle Partitioning of Atmospheric Mercury Using CMAQ-newHg-Br v2

AU - Wu, Lin

AU - Mao, Huiting

AU - Ye, Z.

AU - Dibble, T. S.

AU - Saiz-Lopez, Alfonso

AU - Zhang, Yanxu

N1 - eprint: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2023MS003823

PY - 2024/3

Y1 - 2024/3

N2 - Mercury (Hg) is a global pollutant whose atmospheric deposition is a major input to the terrestrial and oceanic ecosystems. Gas-particle partitioning (GPP) of gaseous oxidized mercury (GOM) redistributes speciated Hg between gas and particulate phase and can subsequently alter Hg deposition flux. Most 3-dimensional chemical transport models either neglected the Hg GPP process or parameterized it with measurement data limited in time and space. In this study, CMAQ-newHg-Br (Ye et al., 2018, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017ms001161) was updated to CMAQ-newHg-Br v2 by implementing a new GPP scheme and the most up-to-date Hg redox chemistry and was run for the northeastern United States over January-November 2010. CMAQ-newHg-Br v2 reproduced the measured spatiotemporal distributions of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) and particulate bound mercury (PBM) concentrations and Hg wet deposition flux within reasonable ranges and simulated dry deposition flux in agreement with previous studies. The GPP scheme improved the simulation of PBM via increasing winter-, spring- and fall-time PBM concentrations by threefold. It also improved simulated Hg wet deposition flux with an increase of 2.1 ± 0.7 μgm2 in the 11-month accumulated amount, offsetting half of the decreasing effect of the updated chemistry (−4.2 ± 1.8 μgm2). Further, the GPP scheme captured the observed Kp-T relationship as reported in previous studies without using measurement data and showed advantages at night and in rural/remote areas where existing empirical parameterizations failed. Our study demonstrated CMAQ-newHg-Br v2 a promising assessment tool to quantify impacts of climate change and emission reduction policy on Hg cycling.

AB - Mercury (Hg) is a global pollutant whose atmospheric deposition is a major input to the terrestrial and oceanic ecosystems. Gas-particle partitioning (GPP) of gaseous oxidized mercury (GOM) redistributes speciated Hg between gas and particulate phase and can subsequently alter Hg deposition flux. Most 3-dimensional chemical transport models either neglected the Hg GPP process or parameterized it with measurement data limited in time and space. In this study, CMAQ-newHg-Br (Ye et al., 2018, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017ms001161) was updated to CMAQ-newHg-Br v2 by implementing a new GPP scheme and the most up-to-date Hg redox chemistry and was run for the northeastern United States over January-November 2010. CMAQ-newHg-Br v2 reproduced the measured spatiotemporal distributions of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) and particulate bound mercury (PBM) concentrations and Hg wet deposition flux within reasonable ranges and simulated dry deposition flux in agreement with previous studies. The GPP scheme improved the simulation of PBM via increasing winter-, spring- and fall-time PBM concentrations by threefold. It also improved simulated Hg wet deposition flux with an increase of 2.1 ± 0.7 μgm2 in the 11-month accumulated amount, offsetting half of the decreasing effect of the updated chemistry (−4.2 ± 1.8 μgm2). Further, the GPP scheme captured the observed Kp-T relationship as reported in previous studies without using measurement data and showed advantages at night and in rural/remote areas where existing empirical parameterizations failed. Our study demonstrated CMAQ-newHg-Br v2 a promising assessment tool to quantify impacts of climate change and emission reduction policy on Hg cycling.

KW - CMAQ

KW - atmospheric mercury

KW - gas-particle partitioning

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85187788732&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1029/2023MS003823

DO - 10.1029/2023MS003823

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1942-2466

VL - 16

JO - Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems

JF - Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems

IS - 3

M1 - e2023MS003823

ER -