[ESAC Seminar] Eric Roy

“Observationally driven constraints on exchange, transport, and chemistry of mercury (Hg)”

Anthropogenic activity has led to the unintended introduction of trace metals such as mercury (Hg) to the environment, whose fate and impacts are determined by surface exchange, transport, and chemical transformation. National and international policy interventions have set out to end future Hg inputs to the environment, but the effectiveness of these interventions and their contribution to contemporary environmental loadings remains unclear.

Here, I present three ongoing projects that follow observationally-driven modeling approaches to quantify the influence of surface fluxes, transport, and chemical transformation, and support the effective implementation of policy interventions. I first discuss results from the Multi-Compartment Hg Modeling Assessment Project (MCHgMAP), an international intercomparison project that seeks to identify the current state of uncertainty in Hg chemical transport modeling to inform the effectiveness evaluation of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Minamata Convention on Hg. Next, I present top-down estimates of regional Hg surface fluxes using measured and modeled Hg concentration variability as a constraint. Finally, I will present recent work leveraging spatially and temporally dense measurements of Hg in the northeastern United States to constrain a regional box model describing the bulk fluxes responsible for observed spatial and temporal gradients.

This will be the first iteration of a presentation that I will give give to the Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) Air Quality Research Division on March 27th. I look forward to your feedback and suggestions!

ESAC Student Seminar Series —

A forum for students and postdocs to share recent research, hone presentation skills, and build community among peers, sponsored by the EAPS Student Advisory Committee. Open to current EAPS graduate and undergraduate students and postdocs. Typically hosted on Thursdays during the semester, including pizza lunch.

Contact: esac.officers@gmail.com