92nd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting (January 22-26, 2012)

Thursday, 26 January 2012: 11:30 AM
Impact of Thunderstorm Morphology on Mercury Deposition
Room 342 (New Orleans Convention Center )
Yuling Wu, University of Alabama, Huntsville, AL; and U. Nair, C. Holmes, A. ter Schure, J. Walters, J. Jansen, and E. Edgerton

Enhanced Hg deposition over the Southeast United States has been attributed to scavenging by deep convection. As global chemical transport models indicate upper tropospheric pool of Hg(II), thunderstorm scavenging could play an important role in explaining enhanced wet deposition of Hg along the Southeast US gulf coast. The RAMSv6 model was equipped with wet removal mechanisms for Hg(II) to simulate the storm scavenging process of Hg in that situation. The results show that efficiency of Hg wet removal by thunderstorms is modulated by the nature storm dynamics. Deeper thunderstorms do tap into higher concentrations of Hg(II) aloft, however most of it is redistributed and does not reach the surface. Nevertheless, the vertical redistribution would affect subsequent storms. Further studies have also conducted to examine the Hg removal capability of storms that form within parameter space consistent with coastal and northern sites.

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