Research Atmospheric Transport of Mercury to the Tibetan Plateau M A R K L O E W E N , †,‡ S H I C H A N G K A N G , §,| DEBBIE ARMSTRONG,† QIANGGONG ZHANG,§ G R E G G T O M Y , †,‡ A N D F E I Y U E W A N G * ,† Department of Chemistry, and Department of Environment and Geography, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Freshwater Institute, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N6, Canada, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, P.R. China, and State Key Laboratory of the Cryospheric Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, P.R. China
The Tibetan Plateau (including the Himalayas) is one of the most remote and cold regions in the world. It has very limited to nonexistent industry but is adjacent to the two most populous and rapidly industrializing countries (China and India) and thus provides a unique location for studying the atmospheric transport of mercury. Here we report the first study on the atmospheric transport of mercury to the Tibetan Plateau. The total mercury profiles in four snowpits from glaciers above 5700 m asl along a southwestnortheast transect across the central Tibetan Plateau were obtained in 2005-2006. In general, the total mercury concentrations in the snow samples ranged from
