title: Atmospheric Mercury Depositional Chronology Reconstructed from Lake Sediments and Ice Core in the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau.
abstract: Alpine lake sediments and glacier ice cores retrieved from high mountain regions can provide long-term records of atmospheric deposition of anthropogenic contaminants such as mercury (Hg). In this study, eight lake sediment cores and one glacier ice core were collected from high elevations across the Himalaya-Tibet region to investigate the chronology of atmospheric Hg deposition. Consistent with modeling results, the sediment core records showed higher Hg accumulation rates in the southern slopes of the Himalayas than those in the northern slopes in the recent decades (post-World War II). Despite much lower Hg accumulation rates obtained from the glacier ice core, the temporal trend in the Hg accumulation rates matched very well with that observed from the sediment cores. The combination of the lake sediments and glacier ice core allowed us to reconstruct the longest, high-resolution atmospheric Hg deposition chronology in High Asia. The chronology showed that the Hg deposition rate was low between the 1500s and early 1800, rising at the onset of the Industrial Revolution, followed by a dramatic increase after World War II. The increasing trend continues to the present-day in most of the records, reflecting the continuous increase in anthropogenic Hg emissions from South Asia.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Lanzhou 730000, China.|CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences , Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Shichang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100101, China.|CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences , Beijing 100101, China.|Laboratory of Green Chemistry, Lappeenranta University of Technology , Sammonkatu 12, Mikkeli FI-50130, Finland.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Center for Earth Observation Science, and Department of Environment and Geography, University of Manitoba , Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada.
authors.forename: Feiyue
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100101, China.|CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences , Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Qianggong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Lanzhou 730000, China.|Laboratory of Green Chemistry, Lappeenranta University of Technology , Sammonkatu 12, Mikkeli FI-50130, Finland.
authors.forename: Yulan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100101, China.|CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences , Beijing 100101, China.|Laboratory of Green Chemistry, Lappeenranta University of Technology , Sammonkatu 12, Mikkeli FI-50130, Finland.
authors.forename: Chaoliu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Environment, State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Long
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Pengfei
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, School of Science, Kathmandu University , Kathmandu 6250, Nepal.
authors.forename: Chhatra Mani
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.affiliation: School of Geography Science, Southwest University , Chongqing 400715, China.
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Green Chemistry, Lappeenranta University of Technology , Sammonkatu 12, Mikkeli FI-50130, Finland.
authors.forename: Mika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sillanpää
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Juzhi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100101, China.|CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences , Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Baiqing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100101, China.|Laboratory of Green Chemistry, Lappeenranta University of Technology , Sammonkatu 12, Mikkeli FI-50130, Finland.|Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Junming
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guo
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000737:chemistry*; D000531:Altitude; D001208:Asia; D001272:Atmosphere; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D046448:Ice Cover / Q000737:chemistry*; D007221:Industry; D060106:Lakes / Q000737:chemistry*; D008628:Mercury / Q000737:chemistry*; D018609:Tibet
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D008628:Mercury