Mercury concentrations in the Canadian Arctic marine ecosystem

This dataset contains 2005 concentrations of total mercury (THg), gaseous elemental mercury (GEM), methylated mercury, dimethyl mercury (DMHg) in the water column of the Canadian Arctic. Mercury in the Arctic is an important environmental and human health issue. The reliance of Northern peoples on traditional foods, such as marine mammals, for subsistence means that they are particularly at risk from mercury exposure. Mercury concentrations on biological organisms have increased since the onset of the industrial age and are controlled by a combination of abiotic factors, food web dynamics and structure, as well as animal behavior. The Arctic Ocean including its coastal seas has many features differentiating it from the rest of the worlds marine ecosystem that can affect the fate of mercury (Hg) an how issues surrounding mercury contamination are viewed. Due to its remote location all anthropogenic mercury inputs to the Arctic Ocean originate from long range transport rather than point source emissions, making source attribution more challenging. Atmospheric process are unique to polar region and play an important role in controlling the deposition of atmospheric mercury.…

Publisher

Environment and Climate Change Canada

Resources

7

Catalogue metadata updated

2021-07-29