Background Natural Hg binds to organic matter in soil Global budgets of Hg do not include Hg frozen in permafrost Schuster P et al 2018 Permafrost stores a globally significant amount of mercury ID: 934098
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Permafrost Regions Contain 1,656 ± 962 Gg Hg
Background: Natural Hg binds to organic matter in soil. Global budgets of Hg do not include Hg frozen in permafrost
Schuster, P., et al. (2018). Permafrost stores a globally significant amount of mercury. Geophys. Res. Lett., 45. https://doi.org/ 10.1002/2017GL075571
Findings: Twice as much Hg in permafrost regions as all other pools combined, quadrupling known soil Hg reservoirs
Significance: Thawing permafrost in the future will release this frozen Hg into the environment, with major impacts to the global food chain.
Analysis: We estimated the Hg in permafrost by multiplying maps of carbon by in situ measurements of the ratio of Hg to carbon
Map of Hg in top 300 cm of soil (
m
g Hg m-2). Regions with high sedimentation, such as river basins, have high soil Hg.
Atmosphere
5
Ocean
353
All Other Soils
454
Marine Evasion
3
4
Marine Deposition
3
Terrestrial Deposition
Terrestrial Emissions
Vegetation
10
2
Anthropogenic Emissions
2
0.4
0
.2
Riverine Flux
Burial
Permafrost
793
Active Layer
863
Global Hg budget with permafrost regions
.
Major
reservoirs in white (Gg Hg) and fluxes in black (Gg Hg yr
-1
).