Four institutions have come together to observe the amount of mercury in the world ocean, and their findings are alarming for humans, wildlife and marine life.
Defining mercury contribution from human activities, the researchers said the ocean holds around 60,000 to 80,000 tons of mercury from pollution, according to their result analysis gathered from 12 sampling cruises in the past eight years.
"Mercury is a priority environmental poison detectable wherever we look for it, including the global ocean abyss," Don Rice, Chemical Oceanography Program director of the National Science Foundation that funded the research, said in a statement.
Ocean waters that are shallower than around 100 meters or 300 feet have triplicated in mercury concentration since the period of Industrial Revolution, study said. As a whole, the ocean also has indicated a growth of about 10 percent above pre-industrial levels of mercury.
As an example, the waters of North Atlantic displayed “the most obvious signs of mercury from pollution because that is where surface waters sink under the influence of temperature and salinity changes to form deep and intermediate water flows,” according to the issued statement of the researchers.
Fortunately, the Northeast and Tropical Pacific were relatively not affected because of the fact that deep ocean waters would take centuries to flow to these regions.
But why worry of mercury concentration in ocean waters?
Research says mercury levels bring about reproductive and fertility problems in some kinds of birds and fish. Exposure to mercury also leads to intelligent quotient deficits and ups the risk of neurodevelopmental concerns in children. The harmful effects of mercury also affect marine life and wildlife.
"It would seem that, if we want to regulate the mercury emissions into the environment and in the food we eat, then we should first know how much is there and how much human activity is adding every year," Carl Lamborg, marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said in a statement.
“These scientists have reminded us that the problem is far from abatement, especially in regions of the world ocean where the human fingerprint is most distinct,” said Rice.
Studying mercury for 24 years now, Lamborg said no method is made available yet to study water sample and differentiate between mercury from pollution and mercury from natural resources. Their new research, however, made way to separate bulk contributions of human and natural resources at least over time, he added.
Researchers were from WHOI, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Observatoire Midi-Pyréneés in France and Wright State University. The European Research Council funded their research, along with the U.S. National Science Foundation.
The Nature journal published their paper, “A global ocean inventory of anthropogenic mercury based on water column measurements.”
