Abstract
The atmospheric part of the mercury cycle is considered as very complicated because of the various physicochemical processes involved. The temporal and spatial scales of various processes are varying according to mercury species. While Hg 0 is considered as long-range transport pollutant, Hg II is fast reacting and deposits quickly (wet and dry). Hg P has behaviour similar to the other particulate in the atmosphere. There is enough evidence now about the various disturbances in what are considered as background quantities. The most important reasons are (i) the increase of emissions from sources like coal burning, waste incinerators, cement production, mining etc, (ii) the lack of understanding of important physicochemical processes like fluxes, transport, transformation and deposition. Because of these verified disturbances, during the last years, a considerable effort has been devoted to reduce the mercury emissions. At the framework of the EU/DG-XII project MAMCS a significant effort has been devoted at the development of appropriate models for studying the mercury cycle in the atmosphere. The model development is performed within the atmospheric models RAMS and SKIRON/Eta. In this development we tried to transfer and utilize the modeling techniques applied in conventional air pollution modelling studies. In addition, we had to develop new methodologies for processes like re-emissions from soil and water bodies and gas to particle formation. The developed modeling systems have been applied in the Mediterranean Region where the multi-scale atmospheric processes (thermal and mechanical circulations at regional and mesoscale) are considered as important, according to a number of past air pollution studies. Seasonal-type of simulation has been performed and annual deposition patterns have been estimated. As it was found, the regional-scale pattern and the trade wind systems (from North to South) and the photochemistry are the key factors for controlling the mercury deposition, especially the Hg P.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
B. B. Hicks, et al. On the Use of Monitored Air Concentrations to Infer Dry Deposition, NOAA Technical Memorandum ERLARL-141, Silver Spring, MD, 1985.
A. Iverfeldt. Occurrence and turnover of atmospheric mercury over the Nordic countries, Water Air Soil. Poll., 56, 151–165, 1991.
Z. I. Janjic. Non-linear advection schemes and energy cascade on semi-staggered grids, Mon. Wea. Rev., 112, 1234–1245, 1984.
Z. I. Janjic. The step-mountain Eta coordinate: Further developments of the convection, viscous sublayer and turbulence closure schemes, J. Atmos. Sci., 122, 927–945, 1994.
G. Kallos, et al. Synoptic and mesoscale weather conditions during air pollution episodes in Athens, Greece, Boundary-Layer Meteorol, 62, 163–184, 1993.
G. Kallos, et al. Estimation of the contribution of the air quality degradation in Athens from major elevated sources, Int. J. Environ. and Pollution, 5, 611–622, 1995.
G. Kallos, et al. Transport and transformation phenomena in the Eastern Mediterranean, in Proc. of the 6th Int. Conf. of the Israeli Soc. for Ecology & Environmental Quality Sciences, Jerusalem, Israel, 17–25, 1996.
G. Kallos, et al. The Regional weather forecasting system SKIRON, in Proc. Symp. on Regional Weather Prediction on Parallel Computer Environments, Athens, Greece, 109–122, 1997.
G. Kallos, et al. Transport and Transformation of air pollutants from Europe to East Mediterranean Region (T-TRAPEM), Final Report, Athens, Greece, 298, 1997.
G. Kallos, et al. Temporal and spatial scales for transport and transformation processes in the eastern mediterranean, in Proc. of the 22st NATO/CCMS Int. Techn. Meeting on Air Pollution Modelling and Its Application, Clermont-Ferrand, France, 1998.
G. Kallos, et al. Modelling of the mercury cycle in the atmosphere, in Proc. 24th ITM of NATO/CCMS on Air Pollution Modelling and its Application, Boulder, CO, USA, 2000.
F. Mesinger. A blocking technique for representation of mountains in atmospheric models, Riv. Meteor. Aeronaut., 44, 195–202, 1984.
P. Pai, et al. Simulation of the regional atmospheric transport and fate of mercury using a comprehensive Eulerian model, Atm. Env., 31, 2717–2732, 1997.
G. Petersen, et al. A comprehensive Eulerian modelling framework for airborne mercury species and precipitation network for 1987 and 1988, Atm. Env., 29, 47–67, 1995.
G. Petersen, et al. A comprehensive Eulerian modelling framework for airborne mercury species: Development and application of a tropospheric chemistry module, Abstracts of the 4th Intern. Conf. on Mercury as a Global Pollutant, Hamburg, Germany, 1996.
R.A. Pielke, et al. A comprehensive meteorological modelling system-RAMS, Meteorol. Atmos. Phys., 49, 69–91, 1992.
N. Pirrone, and G.J. Keeler. Numerical modelling of gas-particle partitioning of atmospheric mercury in urban areas, in Proc. of the 1995 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Aerosol Research (AAAR), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 1995.
N. Pirrone, et al. Dry deposition of trace elements over Lake Michigan: A hybrid-receptor deposition modelling approach, Environmental Science and Technology, 29, 2112–2122, 1995.
N. Pirrone, et al. Ambient levels and dry deposition fluxes of mercury to lakes Huron, Erie and St. Clair, Water, Air & Soil Pollut., 80, 179–188, 1995.
K. Pleijel and J. Munthe. Modelling the atmospheric chemistry of mercury-The importance of a detailed description of the chemistry of cloud water, Water, Air & Soil Pollut., 80, 317–324, 1995.
S. A. Slinn and W. G. N. Slinn. Modelling of atmospheric particulate deposition to natural waters, in S. J. Eisenreich, (ed.), Atmospheric Pollutants in Natural Waters, Ann Arbor Science, Ann Arbor, MI., 22–53, 1981.
C. J. Tremback, et al. An emergency response and local weather forecasting software system, in S-E. Gryning and M. Millan, (eds.), Proc. of the 20th ITM of NATO/CCMS on Air Pollution and its Application, Valencia, Spain, Plenum Press, XI., 1993.
R.M. Willams. A model for the dry deposition of particles to natural water surfaces, Atmos. Environ., 1933–1938, 1982.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Kallos, G., Voudouri, A., Pytharoulis, I., Kakaliagou, O. (2001). Modelling Framework for Atmospheric Mercury over the Mediterranean Region: Model Development and Applications. In: Margenov, S., Waśniewski, J., Yalamov, P. (eds) Large-Scale Scientific Computing. LSSC 2001. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2179. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45346-6_29
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45346-6_29
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-43043-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45346-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive