{"id":5747,"date":"2017-07-13T14:41:43","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T18:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=5747"},"modified":"2017-07-13T14:41:43","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T18:41:43","slug":"the-cycle-of-mercury-pollution-in-the-arctic-tundra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/the-cycle-of-mercury-pollution-in-the-arctic-tundra\/","title":{"rendered":"The cycle of mercury pollution in the Arctic tundra <img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5749\" style=\"width: 710px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5749\" class=\"wp-image-5749\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Pic16_Obrist-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"the arctic tundra ecosystem at Toolik Field Station with the Brooks Range in the background. (Image by Daniel Obrist)\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Pic16_Obrist-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Pic16_Obrist-1024x768-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-5749\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The arctic tundra ecosystem at Toolik Field Station with the Brooks Range in the background.<br \/> <em>(Image by Daniel Obrist)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Human activity has been a major source of mercury pollution in the Arctic, and a new study has identified the form most often taken by the pollutant: gaseous elemental mercury (GEM). The <em>News &amp; Views<\/em>\u00a0article discusses how the Arctic tundra acts as a major sink for mercury, as the local plants uptake GEM from the atmosphere; and what this means for the global mercury cycle as global temperatures warm. Isotopic data collected in the original study by Obrist\u00a0<em>et al.<\/em>reveal that GEM accounts for 90% of the mercury in plants, and the uptake of GEM by plants is especially high in the summer. Since plant matter decomposes into the soil, the Arctic soil may soon become a substantial mercury sink.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Authors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Daniel Obrist, Yannick Agnan, Martin Jiskra, Christine L. Olson, Dominique P. Colegrove, Jacques Hueber, Christopher W. Moore, Jeroen E. Sonke &amp; Detlev Helmig<\/p>\n<p><strong>Corresponding N&amp;V author:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>William Shotyk, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Email: shotyk@ualberta.ca<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/journal\/v547\/n7662\/full\/nature22997.html\" target=\"_blank\">Original paper<\/a> published in <em>Nature<\/em> on July 12, 2017.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/journal\/v547\/n7662\/full\/547167a.html\" target=\"_blank\">Associated <em>News &amp; Views<\/em> article<\/a> by a Canadian author published in <em>Nature<\/em> on July 12, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Human activity has been a major source of mercury pollution in the Arctic, and a new study has identified the form most often taken by the pollutant: gaseous elemental mercury (GEM). The News &amp; Views\u00a0article discusses how the Arctic tundra acts as a major sink for mercury, as the local plants uptake GEM from the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[185,3075,31,3073,3076],"class_list":["post-5747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-arctic","tag-arctic-tundra","tag-climate-change","tag-greenhouse-gas","tag-methane-emissions"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Pic16_Obrist-1024x768.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-1uH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5750,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747\/revisions\/5750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}