Role of the stratosphere in the global mercury cycle

Mercury (Hg) is a global pollutant with substantial risks to human and ecosystem health. By upward transport in tropical regions, mercury enters into the stratosphere, but the contribution of the stratosphere to global mercury dispersion and deposition remains unknown. We find that between 5 and 50% (passing through the 400-kelvin isentropic surface and tropopause, respectively) of the mercury mass deposited on Earth’s surface is chemically processed in the lower stratosphere. Our results show the stratosphere as a unique chemical environment where elemental mercury is efficiently converted to long-lived oxidized species. Subsequent downward transport contributes substantially to the oxidized mercury burden in the troposphere. The results show that the stratosphere facilitates the global dispersion of large amounts of mercury from polluted source regions to Earth’s remote environments. We find that stratospheric transport is as important as tropospheric transport in interhemispheric mercury dispersion. Future projections suggest that expected changes in atmospheric circulation will increase the transport of mercury into the stratosphere.

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Author Saiz-Lopez, A.
Cuevas, C. A.
Acuña, A. U.
Añel, J. A.
Mahajan, A. S.
de la Torre, L.
Feng, W.
Dávalos, J. Z.
Roca-Sanjuán, D.
Kinnison, Douglas E.
Carmona-García, J.
Fernandez, R. P.
Li, Q.
Sonke, J. E.
Feinberg, A.
Martín, J. C. G.
Villamayor, J.
Zhang, P.
Zhang, Y.
Blaszczak-Boxe, C.
Travnikov, O.
Wang, F.
Bieser, J.
Francisco, J. S.
Plane, J. M. C.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2025-01-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2025-07-10T19:55:31.128089
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:42680
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Saiz-Lopez, A., Cuevas, C. A., Acuña, A. U., Añel, J. A., Mahajan, A. S., de la Torre, L., Feng, W., Dávalos, J. Z., Roca-Sanjuán, D., Kinnison, Douglas E., Carmona-García, J., Fernandez, R. P., Li, Q., Sonke, J. E., Feinberg, A., Martín, J. C. G., Villamayor, J., Zhang, P., Zhang, Y., Blaszczak-Boxe, C., Travnikov, O., Wang, F., Bieser, J., Francisco, J. S., Plane, J. M. C.. (2025). Role of the stratosphere in the global mercury cycle. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7fx7ft8. Accessed 12 August 2025.

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