The sea–air exchange of mercury (Hg) in the marine boundary layer of the Augusta basin (southern Italy): Concentrations and evasion flux

Speciated atmospheric mercury in the marine boundary layer of the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea

“…The mean GEM concentration during spring (2.03 ± 0.72 ng m À3 , n ¼ 5243) was comparable to that during fall (2.09 ± 1.58 ng m À3 , n ¼ 4413) (t-test, p > 0.05). The mean GEM level during the whole study period was 2.07 ± 1.16 ng m À3 , which was higher than those in some other open oceans (see Table 1), such as the Atlantic Ocean (Laurier and Mason, 2007;Soerensen et al, 2013), the equatorial Pacific Ocean (Soerensen et al, 2014), the Adriatic Sea (Sprovieri and Pirrone, 2008), and the Indian Ocean (Witt et al, 2010), even higher than those of rural coastal sites in Canada (Cheng et al, 2014), and was comparable to those of coastal sites, such as the Hedo Station (Chand et al, 2008) in Japan, and the Augusta basin (Bagnato et al, 2013) in Italy, but lower than those reported in the northern South China Sea (Fu et al, 2010;Tseng et al, 2012 Fig. 3).…”

Elemental mercury (Hg(0)) in air and surface waters of the Yellow Sea during late spring and late fall 2012: Concentration, spatial-temporal distribution and air/sea flux

“…This indicates that the anthropogenic Hg emission has substantially enhanced the GEM concentration over the downwind region of East Asia. The GEM concentrations are comparable or lower compared to marine regions that impacted by direct human activities or historical Hg releases, such as the SCS (2.8-5.7 ng m À3 , Fu et al, 2010;Tseng et al, 2012Tseng et al, , 2013, the Mediterranean Sea (1.5-2.1 ng m À3 , Sprovieri et al, 2003;Bagnato et al, 2013) and the Atlantic Ocean (2.26 ng m À3 , Soerensen et al, 2010a), but are significantly higher than remote oceans, such as the south-west Indian Ocean (1.2 ng m À3 , Witt et al, 2010) and the oceans in the South Hemisphere (1.0-1.5 ng m À3 , Soerensen et al, 2010a), and also higher than the coast of Central and Southern California in North America (1.40 ng m À3 , Weiss-Penzias et al, 2013). Fig.…”

“…The fluxes obtained in the two cruises were comparable to open regions of many other marine systems, such as the Pacific Ocean ($3 ng m À2 h À1 , Kim and Fitzgerald, 1986;Mason and Fitzgerald, 1993), the Mediterranean Sea (1.52-4.92 ng m À2 h À1 , Andersson et al, 2007;4.2-7.9 ng m À2 h À1 , Gårdfeldt et al, 2003; 2.2 ± 1.5 ng m À2 h À1 , Fantozzi et al, 2013), the Arctic Ocean (2.4 ng m À2 h À1 , Andersson et al, 2008b), the North Sea ($2-6 ng m À2 h À1 , Baeyens and Leermakers, 1998) and the SCS (4.5-3.4 ng m À2 h À1 , Fu et al, 2010), but significantly lower than those Hg-polluted region, such as the Adriatic Sea (10.0-165.5 ng m À2 h À1 , Andersson et al, 2007), the Augusta Basin (72 ng m À2 h À1 , Bagnato et al, 2013). The fluxes were also comparable to the corresponding seasons in CST with similar S a and wind speed but significantly lower ($5-10 times) than the summer cruise (Table 1) because the high S a and great wind speed in the summer cruise substantially promoted the Hg(0) emission (Ci et al, 2011d).…”

Tracing mercury pathways in Augusta Bay (southern Italy) by total concentration and isotope determination

“…On the other hand, MDF has been revealed in human hair, resulting in a~þ2‰ d 202 Hg offset with respect to the consumed seafood (Laffont et al, 2009;. The Augusta Bay (AB; SE Sicily) is a wellknown case study where the Hg sewages from the largest Italian chlor-alkali plant (1958e2005) (Le Donne and Ciafani, 2008) caused alarming environmental concerns (ICRAM, 2005(ICRAM, , 2008Sprovieri et al, 2011), strongly impact on the trophic web (Ausili et al, 2008;Tomasello et al, 2012;Bonsignore et al, 2013) and evasional flux of Hg into atmosphere (Bagnato et al, 2013). Moreover, epidemiological studies carried out in the area have denounced alarming increase of congenital malformations, abortions and mortality rates (Madeddu et al, 2001(Madeddu et al, , 2003.…”