Atmospheric Mercury Monitoring, Analysis, and Chemistry

Abstract

This Special Issue on “Atmospheric Mercury Monitoring and Analysis” of the journal Atmosphere is devoted to all aspects of atmospheric mercury, including instrumental advances; air–surface fluxes; airborne mercury contamination from artisanal gold mining; indoor and outdoor air monitoring; mercury passive air samplers; and atmospheric mercury chemistry, isotopic composition, and modeling.

Mercury is a persistent and toxic heavy metal that concentrates up the aquatic food chain, reaching levels that can harm both humans and wildlife. Recognizing this global problem, over 100 nations from around the world have signed the Minamata Convention on Mercury, a treaty focused on reducing mercury pollution. Accurately measuring atmospheric mercury is critical to understanding its sources, cycling, distribution, and temporal trends and, thus, is key to evaluating the effectiveness of the Minamata Treaty. However, determining concentrations of airborne mercury remain challenging due to its low background (often <2 ng m−3) and complex atmospheric chemistry. Editor