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Simulation of atmospheric mercury depletion events (AMDEs) during polar springtime using the MECCA box model
1Biogeochemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, P.O. Box 3060, 55020 Mainz, Germany
2Air Chemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, P.O. Box 3060, 55020 Mainz, Germany
*also at: Institute of Polar Environment, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, The P R China
Abstract. Atmospheric mercury depletion events (AMDEs) during polar springtime are closely correlated with bromine-catalyzed tropospheric ozone depletion events (ODEs). To study gas- and aqueous-phase reaction kinetics and speciation of mercury during AMDEs, we have included mercury chemistry into the box model MECCA (Module Efficiently Calculating the Chemistry of the Atmosphere), which enables dynamic simulation of bromine activation and ODEs.
We found that the reaction of Hg with Br atoms dominates the loss of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM). To explain the experimentally observed synchronous destruction of Hg and O3, the reaction rate of Hg+BrO has to be much lower than that of Hg+Br. The synchronicity is best reproduced with rate coefficients at the lower limit of the literature values for both reactions, i.e. kHg+Br≈3×10-13 and kHg+BrO≤1×10-15cm3 mol-1 s-1, respectively.
Throughout the simulated AMDEs, BrHgOBr was the most abundant reactive mercury species, both in the gas phase and in the aqueous phase. The aqueous phase concentrations of BrHgOBr, HgBr2, and HgCl2 were several orders of magnitude larger than that of Hg(SO3)2-2.
Considering chlorine chemistry outside depletion events (i.e. without bromine activation), the concentration of total divalent mercury in sea-salt aerosol particles (mostly HgCl2) was much higher than in dilute aqueous droplets (mostly Hg(SO3)2-2), and did not exhibit a diurnal cycle (no correlation with HO2 radicals).
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Citation: Xie, Z.-Q., Sander, R., Pöschl, U., and Slemr, F.: Simulation of atmospheric mercury depletion events (AMDEs) during polar springtime using the MECCA box model, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 8, 13197-13232, 2008. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager
