Characteristics of total gaseous mercury (TGM) concentrations in an
industrial complex in South Korea: impacts from local sources

Seo, Yong-Seok; Jeong, Seung-Pyo; Holsen, Thomas M.; Han, Young-Ji; Choi, Eunhwa; Park, Eun Ha; Kim, Tae Young; Eum, Hee-Sang; Park, Dae Gun; Kim, Eunhye; Kim, Soontae; Kim, Jeong-Hun; Choi, Jaewon; Yi, Seung-Muk

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-10215-2016

Articles | Volume 16, issue 15

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-10215-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Data collection, analysis and application of speciated atmospheric...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-10215-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 15

Research article

|

11 Aug 2016

Research article |

| 11 Aug 2016

Characteristics of total gaseous mercury (TGM) concentrations in an industrial complex in South Korea: impacts from local sources

Yong-Seok Seo, Seung-Pyo Jeong, Thomas M. Holsen, Young-Ji Han, Eunhwa Choi, Eun Ha Park, Tae Young Kim, Hee-Sang Eum, Dae Gun Park, Eunhye Kim, Soontae Kim, Jeong-Hun Kim, Jaewon Choi, and Seung-Muk Yi

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Final revised paper (published on 11 Aug 2016)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Review of acp-2015-939', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 Feb 2016
RC2: 'Review for Yong-Seok Seo et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 15 Feb 2016
AC1: 'Final response (MS No.: acp-2015-939)(Seo et al)', Yong-Seok Seo, 16 Jun 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Yong-Seok Seo on behalf of the Authors (17 Jun 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (20 Jun 2016) by Leiming Zhang

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (01 Jul 2016)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (04 Jul 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors have improved on the paper. However, I still have the following concerns on the revised paper.

Line 195: “The extension to the bivariate case can provide more information on the nature of the sources because different source types such as stack emission sources and ground-level sources can have different wind speed dependencies (prominent at low and high wind speed).” This statement is incorrect because wind speeds are higher at higher elevation than at ground level. It also contradicts a related sentence in lines 439-456: “CBPF shows that the high probabilities from the west occurred under high wind speed (>3 m s -1) indicative of emissions from stacks as well as low wind speed (≤3 m s 1) indicative of non-buoyant ground level sources”

Section 5.1: This paragraph seems out of place. The wind direction analysis should be integrated with the mercury results rather than having its own section. The major result is the mercury analysis rather than the wind direction analysis.

Line 293-294: “however considerably lower than those measured near large Hg sources in Guangzhou, China (Table 1).” This is compared to a much older study. TGM in Guangzhou from a more recent study in Table 1 was 4.6 ng/m3, which is similar to the average TGM in this study.

Section 5.5 diurnal variations: The higher daytime than nighttime result is not quite correct. As stated in lines 365-366, “TGM generally showed a consistent diurnal variation with an increase in the early morning (06:00-09:00) and a decrease in the afternoon (14:00-17:00).” The daytime period from 6:00-18:00 includes the morning increase and afternoon decrease; therefore it’s unclear if daytime TGM is really higher. I suggest explaining what caused the early morning increase and afternoon decrease in TGM, instead of the cause for higher daytime TGM in general. There were a few instances where it led to confusing results. E.g. line 384, “the higher concentrations in the daytime than those in nighttime were due to local emission sources because the daytime temperature (14.7 ± 10.0 ºC) was statistically significantly higher than that in the nighttime (13.0 ± 9.8 ºC) (t-test, p < 0.05) and there was a weak but statistically significant negative correlation between TGM concentration and ambient air temperature (r = -0.08) (p < 0.05).” The negative correlation between TGM and temperature is inconsistent with the higher daytime TGM. Another example in line 406, “TGM concentration was negatively correlated with ambient air temperature (r = -0.08) (p < 0.05) because high ambient air temperature in the daytime will increase the height of the boundary layer and dilute the TGM, and the relatively lower boundary layer at nighttime could concentrate the TGM in the atmosphere (Li et al., 2011).” This explanation contradicts higher daytime TGM as well. It only explains why TGM is lower in the afternoon, but not the early morning increase.

Section 5.6 line 448: “It is difficult to discuss about the different seasonal patterns for CPF and CBPF for TGM concentrations since there were no correlations between TGM and other pollutants in spring, summer and fall except O3.” I don’t understand (and not mentioned in the paper) why the correlation results are needed to interpret the seasonal patterns of CPF and CBPF (Fig. S6). It wasn’t needed to explain the overall CPF and CBPF results. Also, I’m still skeptical whether CBPF provides more information about sources than CPF. Wind speed dependency is included in CBPF to differentiate between ground level and stack emissions; however, it’s not discussed in the results. There should be a more detailed discussion of the local ground level and stack emissions and uncertainties and disadvantages with the CBPF method.

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ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (Editor review) (07 Jul 2016) by Leiming Zhang

AR by Yong-Seok Seo on behalf of the Authors (18 Jul 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (19 Jul 2016) by Leiming Zhang

AR by Yong-Seok Seo on behalf of the Authors (21 Jul 2016) Author's response Manuscript

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Short summary

This study was performed to identify likely source directions and locations of total gaseous mercury (TGM) using CPF, CBPF and TPSCF. Previous studies showed the importance of long-range transport of TGM but not local sources. However, the results from various approaches suggested the importance of local sources near industrial areas including iron and manufacturing facilities, hazardous waste incinerators and the coastal areas relative to distant sources.