If you’ve ever wondered whether pollution in Asia can affect your health, wonder no more.
A new government study concludes that emissions from Asia are a major source of mercury in the North Pacific Ocean, and that if current trends continue the problem will get much worse. That could lead to higher levels of mercury in seafood, particularly tuna.
Scientists have long understood how mercury in the atmosphere gets into freshwater systems. This new research by the U.S. Geological Survey is some of the first to document how it happens in the ocean.
Researchers aboard the R/V Thomas G. Thompson. Courtesy William Landing, Florida State University.
The researchers sampled water at 16 different sites between Honolulu and Alaska. The first thing they discovered is that mercury levels in 2006 were 30% higher than they were in the mid-1990s.
Then using computers, they created a model to show how Asian pollution is partly responsible for the increase.
The researchers believe that mercury in pollution from Asia settles down on the surface of the Western Pacific. A process called “ocean rain” carries the mercury down to lower depths and transforms it into a particularly nasty form called methylmercury.
Currents distribute the methylmercury eastward towards the United States and along the way it makes it’s way into the food chain and accumulates in seafood, including tuna.
Those same computer models predict that if current trends continue, the level of mercury in the North Pacific will rise another 50% by 2050 which could mean more mercury in seafood, too.
In the United States, people get 90% of the exposure to mercury through seafood, and about 40% from Pacific ocean tuna. The level of mercury can vary widely on where the fish was caught and how it was harvested. For more information see the Montery Bay Aquarium’s Seafood WATCH website.
seafoods are great because they are really tasty, i think that almost all seafoods are super duper tasty ,*.