Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new study claims global warming will increase biological production and bio-accumulation of methylmercury, a hideously toxic organic mercury compound. But the attempt by the study authors to attach their conclusions to future climate projections seems questionable.
The abstract of the study;
Terrestrial discharges mediate trophic shifts and enhance methylmercury accumulation in estuarine biota
Sofi Jonsson, Agneta Andersson, Mats B. Nilsson, Ulf Skyllberg, Erik Lundberg, Jeffra K. Schaefer, Staffan Åkerblom and Erik Björn
The input of mercury (Hg) to ecosystems is estimated to have increased two- to fivefold during the industrial era, and Hg accumulates in aquatic biota as neurotoxic methylmercury (MeHg). Escalating anthropogenic land use and climate change are expected to alter the input rates of terrestrial natural organic matter (NOM) and nutrients to aquatic ecosystems. For example, climate change has been projected to induce 10 to 50% runoff increases for large coastal regions globally. A major knowledge gap is the potential effects on MeHg exposure to biota following these ecosystem changes. We monitored the fate of five enriched Hg isotope tracers added to mesocosm scale estuarine model ecosystems subjected to varying loading rates of nutrients and terrestrial NOM. We demonstrate that increased terrestrial NOM input to the pelagic zone can enhance the MeHg bioaccumulation factor in zooplankton by a factor of 2 to 7 by inducing a shift in the pelagic food web from autotrophic to heterotrophic. The terrestrial NOM input also enhanced the retention of MeHg in the water column by up to a factor of 2, resulting in further increased MeHg exposure to pelagic biota. Using mercury mass balance calculations, we predict that MeHg concentration in zooplankton can increase by a factor of 3 to 6 in coastal areas following scenarios with 15 to 30% increased terrestrial runoff. The results demonstrate the importance of incorporating the impact of climate-induced changes in food web structure on MeHg bioaccumulation in future biogeochemical cycling models and risk assessments of Hg.
Read more: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601239
To their credit, the study authors appear to have performed actual physical experiments, they didn’t just rely on models, like far too many climate studies. But their conclusion references climate models – it is the model based assumptions behind the conclusion which I am questioning.
Delving into the study, the main issue appears to be nutrients released by land use changes and increased coastal rainfall will change the population balance of water based microorganisms. The new population balance (fewer microscopic photosynthetic plants, more fungi and bacteria consuming dissolved organic matter from runoff) and increased nutrient availability encourages increased microorganism conversion of inorganic mercury compounds into methyl-mercury.
… The observed differences in MeHg accumulation in these studies were proposed to be caused by differences in the chemical speciation of MeHg. Because of the relatively small increase (20%) in total DOC and the large fraction (>75%) of terrestrial NOM in the mesocosm water phase, the chemical speciation of MeHg was not affected by the applied treatment schemes in our study (table S2). Our results instead emphasize a shift to a heterotrophic pelagic food web as a major cause behind MeHg biomagnification in pelagic biota in response to moderate, and environmentally realistic, enhanced terrestrial NOM loadings to coastal marine environments. …
Read more: Same link as above
My first concern is the prediction of higher runoff. As WUWT recently discussed, global warming cannot cause significantly increased total rainfall, because this would violate the second law of thermodynamics – there is no additional energy available to power that increased rainfall. At worst any global warming will cause rainfall patterns to shift around.
The study itself admits that the prediction of increased runoff, if it occurs, will not apply everywhere. Any contamination problems which occur will be localised.
… The magnitude of the increase in DOC [dissolved organic carbon] concentration for the TM treatment is also relevant for climate change–induced runoff scenarios for large coastal regions worldwide (fig. S4) (7). However, it should be noted that the interpretations of data recently compiled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (7) project a highly variable response in runoff with altered climate, with either increases or decreases, for different regions globally. …
Read more: Same link as above
Given that increased runoff, if it occurs at all, will only occur in some regions, there is a simple solution. In regions where nutrient rich runoff poisons the local fish, the solution is to apply existing waterway management regimes, to find ways to minimise organic matter and nutrients entering river systems.
This seems to be terrific land use study, the authors appear to have genuinely contributed to knowledge about how waterway contamination contributes to marine mercury pollution. Given their rigorous experimental effort, it seems a shame the authors seemed to find it necessary to spice up their study with references to very uncertain regional climate projections.
Update (EW) – fixed a typo in the first paragraph
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Oh my God! Oh my God! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG!
Hg! Hg!Hg!Hg!Hg!Hg!Hg!Hg!
Isn’t fearmongering fun? Great fun for stupid people.
So how do you know if there is a problem? Take hair and blood samples and compare the actual levels to know levels of harm.
This what the CDC does. This is no Hg problem and levels are decreasing. The reason is that we have identified the major anthropocentric sources of mercury and eliminated them. Natural HG is huge in comparison.
BAN ALL CHEMICALS . That’s the only answer .
BTW : I had a blob of mercury about the size of that in the picture I played with as a kid . I liked the way I could roll it around in the palm of my hand .
Bob since you put together a coherent sentence, maybe you lived in a drafty old house.
Indoor air pollution is a unintended consequence of saving energy by sealing up our houses. The levels of airborne radioactivity in the basement of the reactor building were lower than the outside levels if there was a temperature inversion. A certain irony for those who want to justifying closing nuke using conservation.
According to the US EPA, radon is leading cause of lung cancer. No wait it is second hand smoke. No wait it is ……
It is what ever your agenda is, and I can not prove you wrong. Of course the reason is you can not cause cancer, just increase your risk factors. The bad news is you can not reduce your risk very much either.
Enjoy life.
Kit P
Yea , a big old house . I happen to have a pic on my website : http://cosy.com/288img.gif .
In my basement la/bor/v/atory I also played with a big bar of lead which left metallic sheen on my hands , and once ended a party upstairs when I learned how to make hydrogen sulfide with my Chemcraft set . I also learned how a Oudin.Tesla coil really can transmit enough energy to any nearby massive 1920s air gap tuning capacitor to give a hell of a shock .
Now there are lots of rural counties which can’t pass EPA proposed O3 regs .
“BAN ALL CHEMICALS”
Make sure Dihydrogen monoxide is on the list. Damn stuff kills millions every year/
I’ve a Fortin Barometer with over a pound of it. And I overhauled it. Cleaning the tube with nitric acid, then the mercury and baking the tube to remove surface water. The Hg nitric acid was then reacted with ethanol to render a tiny bit of fun primary explosive. All outdoors so I released a few mg of Hg.
I am the embodiment of Heinlein’s Lazarus Long. With a bit of John Galt and John the Savage. Specialization is indeed for insects.
“Why if cheap energy means clean air, water, etc are China’s skies gray? Last time I checked, clean air wasn’t a shade of gray.”
If you checked, why are you asking Sheri?
I have checked by reading detailed studies and talking to people from China. China is a communist country. In northern parts of the country, free coal is provided for heating. This is the same problems that northern cities in the US and Europe had more than 50 years ago.
There was a new 5000 MWe modern coal plant just down the road from where we lived in China. I never observed pollution and I was looking. I am not arguing against pollution controls for SOx, NOx, and particulate. Obviously there is a economic benefit to go with the cost.
Show me a cost/benefit for mercury from coal plants. If there is no harm, then there is no benefit on cost. It is something we can afford in the US to be politically correct.
“I never observed pollution and I was looking. ”
Mercury doesn’t leave the plants as a solid or colored liquid. It leaves the plant as as colorless vapor mixed in with the CO2 exhaust. Rain then carries it into the ground. Generally mercury pollution is not something you can see or smell. Generally mercury pollution has debilitating effects on people that can be hard to treat, irreversible and have significant medical and social cost associated with it.
“mercury pollution has debilitating effects on people that can be hard to treat,”
Not from coal plants in the US. Steven you can not find an actual case.
See the study(IIRC Cornell U) on the people of the Seychelles Islands WRT Hg and fish.
Since you didn’t say “the cost/benefit for mercury from coal plants” but rather “cheap energy means clean air, …..” I wasn’t addressing the cost/benefite from mercury reduction in coal power plant smoke stakes. I was addressing cheap energy.
You say the Chinese get free coal—that’s as cheap as it gets. Yet it causes more problems than it solves. I’m not seeing “cheap energy” as the answer and your answers seem to bear that out.
(I asked because someone—like yourself—might have more information or a more current source of information. I like to double check. Your answer leads me to believe that cheap energy does lead to gray skies.)
Sheri
Do you understand the difference between a coal power plant and burning cow pies to cook your food?
The latter is renewable energy so you should love it. There is a difference between power and energy.
“Cheap power is not a panacea for environmental causes. It does raise standards of living.”
There are no environmental causes in places that do not have high standards of living. Trust me on this, bears sh*t in the woods. Bambi does not care about protecting the environment. Massive herds of buffalo had huge environmental impact. Feedlots with 100,000 corn feed provide cheap protein (aka steak) for the poor with insignificant environmental impact.
In the US, power have to demonstrate insignificant environmental impact.
Sheri is just wrong. Cheap power is a panacea for the environment and the humans who use.
Mercury became an issue when sulfur emissions were controlled. With sulfur, mercury precipitates as an insoluble and breaks the cycle. Same with lead.
Let me say this about checking. You need good scientific sources and that excludes the news media.
If you want to know about air quality, go to airnow.gov. When we lived in China our air quality was very good but not so good in a population center of 50 millions with must have been a million motorbikes. I checked the monitoring point on the consulate and found that it was not as bad as it looked visually. Not ‘good’ but not as bad as the media represents. Numbers relative to health effects is checking.
What I found interesting is that cities in China are not listed here:https://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.global_summary
Eric, in the earlier WUWT article you referenced, I had a comment that, because of buoyancy of moist air, little work was being done in raising this water up, but at altitude the moisture condensed, and the rain that fell DID do considerable work. Following brief discussion on this (IMHO) important point, it was left in limbo. As an analogy, if you forcibly took a block of wood down to the bottom of the sea and released it, you would do considerable work taking it down. Would releasing it to rise do any work, other than that of some localized turbulence/drag? The work done on the two journeys wouldn’t be equal. In the rising moist air case, even drag would be less than for the block of wood. (? ).
Eric and others,
“The study itself admits that the prediction of increased runoff, if it occurs, will not apply everywhere. Any contamination problems which occur will be localised.”
Methyl mercury is almost exclusively produced in anoxic or low-oxygen environments. That is, either stagnant water bodies, or stratified water bodies where the lower levels are depleted in oxygen. It would seem to me that one of the consequences of increased rainfall and runoff, should they occur, would be to disturb and oxygenate these stagnant bodies and reduce the methyl mercury production, if there is mercury even present.
Eric,
The Wikipedia link that you provided has what I think are some errors. First, it says, “SEVERAL studies indicate that methylmercury is linked to subtle developmental deficits in children exposed in-utero such as loss of IQ points, and decreased performance in tests of language skills, memory function and attention deficits.[20].” However, examining the abstract of reference [20], it only cites three studies, one of which did not support the claim.
Elsewhere, the Wikipedia article blames the treatment of seeds with methyl mercury for causing poisoning of people who ate them, or from eating animals that died from eating them. I believe the seeds were treated with ethyl mercury.
Nicholas wrote,
“But this is an isolated extreme case of carelessness, ”
The failure rate was better than what we assume for human error of well trained well motivated workers.
Mercury poisoning, either by accident or industrial releases, are isolated cases because of the precautions we take.
@Bob A
“Yea , a big old house .”
With beautiful windows.
These are against the law in California. I build a house in when I was working at the nuke plant. My original plans were rejected because I had too many beautiful windows. My house had a lot few windows that the picture of houses built for Hollywood stars.
I had the architect label south facing windows as passive solar collectors.
During construction, one of the contractors suggested that he could frame in windows and then cover the future windows with sheet rock. After the the house is country final, just back and install windows.
Apparently, I was not the first person to object to building a house to save energy.
@Pop P
You were not brainwashed by your employer. From your reference,
“Mercury emissions from power plants are considered the largest anthropocentric source of mercury released to the atmosphere; about 48 tons ….”
Note the nice double speak. Coal plants are the largest only because all of the significant sources of mercury have been eliminated by regulations. Coal emissions are not significant relative to natural emissions.
Furthermore, coal power Hg emissions are not a source of harm to people.
The dreaded methylation of elements such as arsenic and mercury leading to widespread ill health and imminent death continues to be pushed. I live in within the confines of one of the world’s largest old goldfields where all of these nasties are in great abundance – not the methylated ones. I hasten to add for the simple reason is that they do not occur in nature at levels worthy of study. Mercury amalgam is common in the old tailings heaps. No doubt earlier workers did succumb to mercury related diseases especially derived from poorly designed retorts. There was no concerted clean up attempted though there have been sporadic reports written without identifying an issue of ugency. Today the goldfield the various goldfields have a combined population of 300,000 persons all the way up to 110 in age. With the latest medical facilities available none of the diseases that the frightbats would inflict upon us have been reported.
IRFM,
Indeed, as with AGW, there is a lot of hand wringing, but little hard evidence. I had met and talked extensively with a geologist from the USGS who was studying mercury on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, the famous Mother Lode. While it was easy to find both amalgam and liquid mercury in streams and abandoned tunnels, he was unable to document any problems even with the wildlife that were a part of the ecosystem. I have spent years in the area and have never observed any wildlife that either looked or acted strangely.
I am glad you read possibilities in the research Eric.
I have doubts.
The paper is filled with pompous bafflegab and serves as a wonderful example of confirmation bias in multiple directions.
Their premise is assumed, in a number of methods.
The researchers begin with the assumption rainfall will increase, from assumed and apparently accepted “global warming”.
From “global warming” caused greater rainfall, they surmise that greater rainfall means greater runoff.
From greater runoff, it is assumed greater runoff will erode undefined, but assumed pools of mercury.
From greater runoff, the researchers also assume greater amounts of land based organic content will get washed into estuarine systems, interfering with methyl-mercury.
The researchers entire ‘experiment’ is designed to ‘prove’ these hypotheses.
As we have seen in ‘other’ seawater experiments, a design was cobbled up, filled with sea water and sea floor cores and then operated.
There is no evidence that the improvised sea floor mesomodel, (middle size model), was run for any length of time first to validate an ocean model’s operation and to establish baselines; nor run for a length of time afterwards to verify baseline findings.
During the physical model’s run, it is very unclear exactly what was performed. Beyond their establishing the model in a dark room with halogen lighting for 12 hours daily.
Yeah, halogen lights for 12 hours daily; that will model the Bothnia Sea properly.
Then that little statement, “Using mercury mass balance calculations, we predict”; mass balance scales as used in quantitative or qualitative chemistry? Scales with accuracy, given proper maintenance and calibration, to four decimal places?
Just how minute are the samples they collected?
How many sample were taken throughout the experiment from all phases?
All to reach ‘prediction’ and a loose implication that all salt water estuarine environments will be affected.
v’