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Monitoring of Atmospheric Mercury at a Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) Site on An-Myun Island, Korea

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Abstract

In order to investigate the regional background concentration levels of mercury (Hg), measurements were routinely recorded on An-Myun Island off the coast of Korea (December 2004 to April 2006). The mean concentration of Hg computed from the entire measurement period was 4.61 ± 2.21 ng m−3 with a range of 0.10–25.4 ng m−3 (N = 10,485). Using these data, we inspected various aspects of Hg behavior from the relatively remote island of An-Myun in Korea. Inspection of the seasonal patterns of Hg indicated that its concentration levels generally peaked in spring, while reached a minimum in summer. The summertime deficiency of Hg along with the lack of diurnal variation suggests that the environmental behavior of Hg at the study site was strongly suppressed by heavy precipitation during specific period. The diurnal variations of Hg, typically characterized by a relative daytime dominance, are distinguishable between seasons so that such patterns disappear during the summer. The results of our analysis, when inspected in terms of long-range transport of airborne pollutants, imply that Hg concentration levels can be affected intensively by trans-boundary input processes over certain period of time. Its springtime dominance hence suggests the combined effects of various local source processes and the meteorological conditions favorable for the massive air mass transport phenomenon (such as Asian Dust storms) during that time period.

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Acknowledgements

This research was carried out with the financial support of the Korea Polar Research Institute, KORDI (Grant PP06010). Also, the authors would like to thank the Korea Research Foundation which provided grant that contributed to this research (KRF-2005-201-C00045). Many thanks also go to NOAA/ARL for providing the HYSPLIT model and meteorological data. Special thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Sejong University, Seoul, South Korea

    Hang Thi Nguyen & Ki-Hyun Kim

  2. Seoul Metropolitan Institute of Public Health and Environment, Seoul, South Korea

    Min-Young Kim

  3. Polar Environmental Research Division, Korea Polar Research Institute, KORDI, Inchon, South Korea

    Sungmin Hong

  4. Marine Meteorology Division, Korea Meteorological Administration, Seoul, South Korea

    Yong-Hoon Youn

  5. Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Dong-Eui University, 995 Eomgwangno, Busanjin-gu, Busan, South Korea

    Zang-Ho Shon

  6. Environment Measurement Group, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS), 1 Doryong Dong, Yusung Gu, Daejeon, South Korea

    Jeong Soon Lee

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  1. Hang Thi Nguyen
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  2. Ki-Hyun Kim
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  3. Min-Young Kim
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  4. Sungmin Hong
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  5. Yong-Hoon Youn
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Correspondence to Ki-Hyun Kim.

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Nguyen, H.T., Kim, KH., Kim, MY. et al. Monitoring of Atmospheric Mercury at a Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) Site on An-Myun Island, Korea. Water Air Soil Pollut 185, 149–164 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-007-9438-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-007-9438-5

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