[OANNES Foro] A global ocean inventory of anthropogenic mercury based on water column measurements

Mie Ago 6 15:56:34 PDT 2014

Nature 512, 65–68

(07 August 2014)

doi:10.1038/nature13563

Published online 06 August 2014

A global ocean inventory of anthropogenic mercury based on water column
measurements

·
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html?WT..ec
_id=NATURE-20140807#auth-1> Carl H. Lamborg,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html?WT..ec
_id=NATURE-20140807#auth-2> Chad R. Hammerschmidt,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html?WT..ec
_id=NATURE-20140807#auth-3> Katlin L. Bowman,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html?WT..ec
_id=NATURE-20140807#auth-4> Gretchen J. Swarr,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html?WT..ec
_id=NATURE-20140807#auth-5> Kathleen M. Munson,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html?WT..ec
_id=NATURE-20140807#auth-6> Daniel C. Ohnemus,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html?WT..ec
_id=NATURE-20140807#auth-7> Phoebe J. Lam,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html?WT..ec
_id=NATURE-20140807#auth-8> Lars-Eric Heimbürger,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html?WT..ec
_id=NATURE-20140807#auth-9> Micha J. A. Rijkenberg  &
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html?WT..ec
_id=NATURE-20140807#auth-10> Mak A. Saito

1.    Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, USA

2.    Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Wright State
University, Dayton, Ohio 45435, USA Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, Laboratoire
Géosciences Environnement Toulouse, CNRS/IRD/Université Paul-Sabatier, 14,
avenue Édouard Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France Department of Biological
Oceanography, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Den Burg, 1790
AB, The Netherlands

·          

Mercury is a toxic trace metal that accumulates in aquatic organisms and
whose emissions to the environment have increased significantly as a result
of mining and fossil fuel combustion. Carl Lamborg and colleagues measured
mercury levels during expeditions to the Atlantic, Pacific, Southern and
Arctic Oceans. Their findings suggest that human disturbances to the global
mercury cycle have led to an approximately 150% increase in the amount of
mercury in thermocline waters and have more than tripled the mercury content
of surface waters.

Mercury is a toxic, bioaccumulating trace metal whose emissions to the
environment have increased significantly as a result of anthropogenic
activities such as mining and fossil fuel combustion
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html#ref1>
1,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html#ref2>
2. Several recent models have estimated that these emissions have increased
the oceanic mercury inventory by 36–1,313 million moles since the 1500s
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html#ref2>
2,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html#ref3>
3,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html#ref4>
4,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html#ref5>
5,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html#ref6>
6,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html#ref7>
7,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html#ref8>
8,
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7512/full/nature13563.html#ref9>
9. Such predictions have remained largely untested owing to a lack of
appropriate historical data and natural archives. Here we report
oceanographic measurements of total dissolved mercury and related parameters
from several recent expeditions to the Atlantic, Pacific, Southern and
Arctic oceans. We find that deep North Atlantic waters and most intermediate
waters are anomalously enriched in mercury relative to the deep waters of
the South Atlantic, Southern and Pacific oceans, probably as a result of the
incorporation of anthropogenic mercury. We estimate the total amount of
anthropogenic mercury present in the global ocean to be 290 ± 80 million
moles, with almost two-thirds residing in water shallower than a thousand
metres. Our findings suggest that anthropogenic perturbations to the global
mercury cycle have led to an approximately 150 per cent increase in the
amount of mercury in thermocline waters and have tripled the mercury content
of surface waters compared to pre-anthropogenic conditions. This information
may aid our understanding of the processes and the depths at which inorganic
mercury species are converted into toxic methyl mercury and subsequently
bioaccumulated in marine food webs.

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