Mercury plumes in the global upper troposphere observed during flights with the CARIBIC observatory from May 2005 until June 2013

Slemr, Franz, Weigelt, Andreas, Ebinghaus, Ralf, Brenninkmeijer, Carl, Baker, Angela, Schuck, Tanja, Rauthe-Schöch, Armin, Riede, Hella, Leedham, Emma ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6993-1271, Hermann, Markus, Van Velthoven, Peter, Oram, David, O'Sullivan, Debbie, Dyroff, Christoph, Zahn, Andreas and Ziereis, Helmut (2014) Mercury plumes in the global upper troposphere observed during flights with the CARIBIC observatory from May 2005 until June 2013. Atmosphere, 5 (2). pp. 342-369. ISSN 2073-4433

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Abstract

Tropospheric sections of flights with the CARIBIC (Civil Aircraft for Regular Investigation of the Atmosphere Based on an Instrumented Container) observatory from May 2005 until June 2013, are investigated for the occurrence of plumes with elevated Hg concentrations. Additional information on CO, CO, CH, NO, O, hydrocarbons, halocarbons, acetone and acetonitrile enable us to attribute the plumes to biomass burning, urban/industrial sources or a mixture of both. Altogether, 98 pollution plumes with elevated Hg concentrations and CO mixing ratios were encountered, and the Hg/CO emission ratios for 49 of them could be calculated. Most of the plumes were found overEast Asia, in the African equatorial region, over South America and over Pakistan and India. The plumes encountered over equatorial Africa and over South America originate predominantly from biomass burning, as evidenced by the low Hg/CO emission ratios andelevated mixing ratios of acetonitrile, CHCl and particle concentrations. The backward trajectories point to the regions around the Rift Valley and the Amazon Basin, with its outskirts, as the source areas. The plumes encountered over East Asia and over Pakistan and India are predominantly of urban/industrial origin, sometimes mixed with products of biomass/biofuel burning. Backward trajectories point mostly to source areas in China andnorthern India. The Hg/CO and Hg/CH emission ratios for several plumes are also presented and discussed.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 11 - sustainable cities and communities ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/sustainable_cities_and_communities
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Atmospheric Chemistry (former - to 2018) Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Climate, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (former - to 2017)
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	06 Aug 2014 11:50
Last Modified:	21 Oct 2022 00:04
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/49871
DOI:	10.3390/atmos5020342

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