The Impact of Precipitation Cell Morphology on Mercury Wet Deposition: Florida

Despite the overall decrease in anthropogenic mercury emissions over the past decade, elevated concentrations of mercury continue to be observed in rainfall collected within the State of Florida, as well as many other Gulf Coast states. Previous studies have attributed the source of mercury deposition to both anthropogenic and natural sources without conclusive results. One hypothesis presented in the literature suggests that given the preponderance of convective precipitation within Florida, tall cumulus towers may scavenge mercury from the free troposphere, providing a mechanism for regional/global source contribution to the observed wet-deposition within Florida. For this reason, this project sought to investigate potential correlations between mercury wet-deposition and precipitation storm cell morphology. Using 2009 NEXRAD radar data from Miami, Florida (KAMX), storm parameters were analyzed at two locations within South Florida (Davie and Everglades National Park) in order to gain insight on the potential influence of precipitation cell morphology on observed mercury deposition and concentration. Storm parameters analyzed included: storm type, storm motion, maximum reflectivity, maximum echo top, CAPE, NCAPE, total wind shear and precipitable water. Although no concrete correlations were found for the year 2009, smaller subsets of the data did provide some weak relationships. This presentation will be a showcase of the results found within the storm type and precipitation events.