the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 03 Mar 2025
Measurement report: Atmospheric mercury measurements at the Russian Arctic station Amderma and connection with eruptions of Icelandic volcanoes
Abstract. Mercury (Hg) is a toxic substance and accumulates in the biosphere causing negative impacts to the well-being of flora and fauna as well as humans. In this study, we analysed the long-term time-series (2001–2013) of the gaseous elemental mercury measurements at the Arctic station Amderma (Russia). We explored the influence of long-range atmospheric transport of gas-phase mercury into the Arctic from the volcanic eruptions in Iceland in 2010–2011. The change in the dynamics of atmospheric Hg concentration was identified. Contrasting time periods of 2001–2009 and 2010–2012 periods, we quantified a negative trend of -0.66 ng for the earlier period and a positive trend of +0.97 ng for the latter period. Our analysis highlighted that the elevated Hg concentrations at Amderma were associated with active volcanic eruptions in Iceland, namely Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn in 2010 and in 2011, respectively. The observed Hg concentrations were in the range of 1.81÷2.58 ng m−3 in Apr–Jun 2010 and 1.81÷3.31 ng m−3 in May–Jun 2011 compared with the annual average Hg concentrations of 1.51±0.41 ng m−3. This is the first time to detect such an elevated Hg concentration during the active volcanic eruptions measured over 3200 km away from the eruption source. The calculated atmospheric backward trajectories (at altitudes of 500, 1500 and 3000 meters above sea level) underlined the occurrence of the Hg elevated concentrations and confirmed the atmospheric transport from the areas of these two volcanoes. Therefore, it can be assumed that these volcanoes were the main source of the increased Hg concentrations at the Amderma station resulted due to the long-range atmospheric transport of the volcanic emissions.
Competing interests: Tuukka Petäjä is an Editor of Atmos Chem. Phys.
Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this preprint. The responsibility to include appropriate place names lies with the authors.- Preprint
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Status: open (until 14 Apr 2025)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-393', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Mar 2025
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Summary:
In “Atmospheric mercury measurements at the Russian Arctic station Amderma and connection with eruptions of Icelandic volcanoes,” authors Pankratov et al. claim that volcanic eruptions in Iceland in 2010 and 2011 caused elevated atmospheric Hg concentrations observed 3200 km away during subsequent months. This would be an important and exciting result if more evidence was presented to support the proposed link. However, the evidence being presented is largely circumstantial, lacking statistical rigor and lacking observations of non-Hg atmospheric parameters that support the notion of volcanic influence. The underlying monitoring record of atmospheric Hg concentrations from 2001 – 2013 is of scientific interest if it is part of the original contribution of this work, however the characterization of long-term trends also would benefit from more careful statistical characterization and appropriate grounding/contextualization in relevant scientific literature. Comments on specific sections can be found below.
Introduction:
- The introduction is rambling and does not appropriately synthesize knowledge from the literature regarding the role of volcanism in the global mercury cycle. Many relevant papers are cited, but the information drawn from them is somewhat arbitrary and does not, in my view, represent the present state of knowledge. For example, many volcanic Hg flux estimates are presented in a haphazard manner between lines 47 and 90, with limited discussion of why these estimates diverge and whether there is any emerging consensus on the global volcanic Hg flux and its uncertainty.
- Tracing the sources of information in the introduction is frequently challenging, as there are many sentences which contain factual statements that should be supported with a reference but are not. Examples of this can be found on lines 47, 63, 70-73, to name a few.
- In many parts of the manuscript, imprecise language causes statements to be incorrect or to have diminished meaning. One example can be found on lines 17 – 18: “The change in the dynamics of atmospheric Hg concentration was identified.” In other parts of the manuscript, statements are limited to the point of being incorrect, as on lines 36 – 37 where the authors state that “the mechanisms whereby reactive Hg species are reduced to volatile HgII are poorly known…” while neglecting to mention the role of photoreduction or citing any relevant references.
Results and Discussion:
- The evidence for volcanic influence on enhanced Hg concentrations in April – June 2010 and May – June 2011 is largely circumstantial. This would be a very exciting result if the authors were able to more definitively link volcanic activity to observed atmospheric Hg concentration enhancements ~3000 km away. However, I find myself unconvinced at this time. A few reasons are:
- It appears that concentrations exceed 3 ng/m3 frequently during many years of the record (e.g., 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2012, 2013). More rigorous statistical work to characterize how anomalous the concentrations were during the time periods shown in Fig. 4 could improve support for the claim of a transient (potentially volcanic) emission source.
- The back trajectory characterization is not rigorously conducted or described. Ideally, I would be interested in seeing greater than 3 trajectories for each time point and would be interested in some characterization of where the trajectories may have intersected with the volcanic plume. Evidence for volcanic influence would be much stronger if the authors were to show that during the periods of interest (April – June 2010, May – June 2011), that back trajectories originated from regions away from the eruptions and their plumes during the periods where concentrations were not elevated.
- Providing independent (non-Hg concentration) evidence for volcanic influence during periods of elevated atmospheric Hg would strengthen claims. Can the authors observe enhanced satellite SO2 column densities over the measurement site during periods of elevated Hg concentrations? Do other atmospheric chemistry parameters measured at the site show concurrent variation with Hg?
- There are many Hg emission sources that may exhibit high variability in this region at this time. Can the authors provide evidence to rule out the possibility that the elevated Hg0 concentrations could have been caused by Hg0 evasion following the spring freshet to the Arctic Ocean (e.g., Fisher et al., 2012)?
- The long-term Hg trends at this site are interesting and potentially valuable to the scientific community if better described and statistically characterized. Trends should be reported with a consistent time unit (e.g., ng/m3/yr or %/yr relative to a common reference point). Additionally, trends should be reported with appropriate confidence intervals and their statistical significance should be explicitly reported.
General Comments:
It is not entirely clear to what extent the measurements discussed here represent an original contribution of this work. If the measurements are available or have been reported previously (in part or in their entirety), then proper attribution should be provided to the original data source. If the measurements presented here are an original contribution associated with this manuscript, then that adds to the overall novelty and value of this work.
Specific Comments:
Figure 6. The location of the eruptions should be shown in the figure. Additionally, the time axes are challenging to read and cut off in two of the panels in (b). As noted above, a more comprehensive approach to trajectory characterization would improve the manuscript, particularly comparing trajectories during elevated Hg concentration periods to non-elevated Hg concentration periods during the weeks following the eruption.
References:
Fisher, J., et al. Riverine source of Arctic Ocean mercury inferred from atmospheric observations. Nat. Geosci. 5, 499–504 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1478
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-393-RC1 -
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-393', Anonymous Referee #2, 26 Mar 2025
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The manuscript presents a long-term analysis (2001–2013) of atmospheric mercury concentrations at the Amderma Arctic station, aiming to link observed enhancements in 2010 and 2011 to volcanic eruptions in Iceland. The dataset is valuable, and the integration of continuous monitoring with backward trajectory analysis provides a potentially novel insight into long-range transport of volcanogenic mercury. However, several important issues need to be addressed before the study's conclusions can be fully supported. These include overinterpretation of seasonal trends, lack of statistical testing for trends, and insufficient discussion of 2012 peak.
Specific Comments
- The introduction is too long and some sentences are off topic. For example, the paragraph starting as “Some studies show that continuously degassing….” (lines 70-81) can be removed because the role of volcanic emissions is already introduced earlier. This paragraph shifts focus to other volcanic gases, which are outside the main scope of this study. Also, the sentences with lines 94~96 show the indirect comparison to Bi is not used in this result or discussion. It adds unnecessary complexity. I suggest that the authors read the manuscript thoroughly and effectively reduce the introduction part.
- Methodology : There is very detailed description of the Tekran analyzer, most of which is best referred to as supplementary material.
- The manuscript reports a decreasing trend in Hg concentrations during the 2001-2010 period and an increasing trend during the 2010-2012, but this conclusion appears to be drawn based on visual inspection of the time series and the average values rather than a formal statistical analysis. I recommend that the authors support this claim with appropriate statistical methods.
- Figure 2. What is the time resolution of the measurement values? Daily concentrations? Please describe the time resolution in the caption of this figure. Also, this figure omits some of the extreme high values that are mentioned in the text. While adjusting the y-axis scale improves visibility of the general trend, I suggest indicating in the figure caption that these outliers were clipped. Alternatively, consider adding an inset plots showing the full range of values to preserve data transparency. Sometimes, outliers are very important.
- Figure 3. The authors present seasonal trends of Hg concentration, but the specific month ranges used to define each season are not explicitly stated. Please clarify it.
- While the authors emphasize an increase in mercury concentrations during 2010–2012, Figure 3 does not clearly support this claim. In fact, seasonal concentrations in 2010 and 2011 appear comparable to or even lower than some years in the earlier 2001–2008 period. The observed rise may largely reflect a dip in 2009 rather than a significant upward shift. I recommend conducting a statistical comparison between the 2001–2009 and 2010–2012 periods (e.g., using seasonal mean tests or trend analysis) to robustly support the claim of anomalous increases related to volcanic activity.
- The manuscript attributes elevated mercury concentrations during 2010–2012 to volcanic eruptions in 2010 and 2011. However, Figure 4 shows that the highest Hg concentrations were observed well after the main eruption period, particularly in June 2011. Moreover, Figure 3 indicates that 2012 had the highest seasonal mean concentrations, yet the authors provide no specific explanation for this anomaly. The authors mentioned that the registration of the Hg elevated concentrations was mainly related to the regional atmospheric transport of Hg from 4th Jun 2011 (line 340), but it is just blanket claim, and there is no specific explanation for the particularly high concentrations in 2012 (summer and autumn).
- Looking at Figure 5, it seems clear that the Eyjafjallajokull eruption caused an increase in Hg concentrations in April-May 2010. However, when comparing the concentration trends in 2011 with 2012, it seems difficult to see the impact of Grimsvotn on Hg concentration in May and June in 2011.
- Section 3.4. The backward trajectory analysis in Section 3.4 focuses only on days with elevated Hg concentrations. However, to robustly support the link between volcanic activity and increased Hg levels, it is essential to assess whether similar air mass trajectories occurred on days without elevated concentrations. If the synoptic-scale atmospheric circulation during the study period tended to bring air from similar source regions regardless of Hg levels, the observed coincidence might be incidental rather than causal.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-393-RC2
Data sets
Long-term monitoring of gaseous elementary mercury in background air at the polar station Amderma, Russian Arctic (Version 1) [Data set] Fidel Pankratov https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4060211
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