<
https://news.mit.edu/2024/study-finds-mercury-pollution-from-human-activities-declining-1008>
"MIT researchers have some good environmental news: Mercury emissions from
human activity have been declining over the past two decades, despite global
emissions inventories that indicate otherwise.
In a new study, the researchers analyzed measurements from all available
monitoring stations in the Northern Hemisphere and found that atmospheric
concentrations of mercury declined by about 10 percent between 2005 and 2020.
They used two separate modeling methods to determine what is driving that
trend. Both techniques pointed to a decline in mercury emissions from human
activity as the most likely cause.
Global inventories, on the other hand, have reported opposite trends. These
inventories estimate atmospheric emissions using models that incorporate
average emission rates of polluting activities and the scale of these
activities worldwide.
“Our work shows that it is very important to learn from actual, on-the-ground
data to try and improve our models and these emissions estimates. This is very
relevant for policy because, if we are not able to accurately estimate past
mercury emissions, how are we going to predict how mercury pollution will
evolve in the future?” says Ari Feinberg, a former postdoc in the Institute for
Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) and lead author of the study.
The new results could help inform scientists who are embarking on a
collaborative, global effort to evaluate pollution models and develop a more
in-depth understanding of what drives global atmospheric concentrations of
mercury.
However, due to a lack of data from global monitoring stations and limitations
in the scientific understanding of mercury pollution, the researchers couldn’t
pinpoint a definitive reason for the mismatch between the inventories and the
recorded measurements."
Via
Fix the News:
https://fixthenews.com/275-resurrection-notre-dame/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
