Simulation of the fate and transport of mercury in North America

A multiscale modeling system that includes a global model and a nested continental model is applied to simulate the global cycling of atmospheric mercury and its fate and transport over North America. The models show satisfactory performance with a coefficient of determination of 0.81 for mercury wet deposition over North America. The models are used to estimate source attribution of mercury deposition in the United States. On average, 73% of mercury deposited in the contiguous United States is calculated to originate from the global background.