Melting Arctic ice releasing banned toxins, warn scientists

[G_j]

Source: guardian.co.uk

Melting Arctic ice releasing banned toxins, warn scientists

Unknown amount of trapped persistent organics pollutants poses threat to marine life and humans as temperatures rise

Damian Carrington guardian.co.uk, Sunday 24 July 2011 22.19 BST

The warming of the Arctic is releasing toxic chemicals that had been trapped in the ice and cold water, scientists have discovered.

The researchers warn that the amount of the poisons in the polar region is unknown and their release could "undermine global efforts to reduce environmental and human exposure to them".

The chemicals seeping out as temperatures rise include the pesticides DDT, lindane and chlordane as well as the industrial chemicals PCBs and the fungicide hexachlorobenzene (HCB). All of these are know as persistent organics pollutants (Pops), and are banned under the 2004 Stockholm convention.

Pops can cause cancers and birth defects and take a long time to degrade. Over past decades, the low temperatures in the Arctic trapped volatile Pops in ice and cold water. But scientists in Canada and Norway have discovered that global warming is freeing the Pops again. They examined measurements of Pops in the air between 1993 and 2009 at the Zeppelin research station in Svalbaard and Alert weather station in northern Canada.



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/24/melting-arctic-ice-banned-toxins-pops

[kestrel91316]

1. karma

[tex-wyo-dem]

11. karma? yep, I agree....

"You reap what you sow" would be another way of putting it...

In our neverending greed and quest to dominate over nature we've truly fucked ourselves (and every other living being for that matter) in the process.

[sakabatou]

2. We've pretty much fucked ourselves when it comes to the environment

[glinda]

3. What did they think would happen? Gads. It will get worse.

[StarsInHerHair]

4. I see job opportunities here, but ...?

[SnakeEyes]

5. Proof positive that everyone

needs to cut back their lifestyles and reduce their contribution to global warming and climate change. And that means everyone, including the rich/famous. You're carbon credits are doing nothing NOW.

[raouldukelives]

6. + 1

[The Doctor.]

15. Huh?

Couple of things;

1) It's not entirely a 'lifestyle' issue. Many are barely leaving a footprint simply because they can't afford jack shit right now.

2) The real problem is the opposition to implementing CO2 reduction among industry. Much of the reason that individuals find themselves contributing to CO2 emissions is because they simply don't have choices in order to avoid doing so. Only government can provide those choices through regulation and incentives to industry.

3) Carbon credits certainly do pose a solution... if properly implemented. Anyone that doesn't believe that is simply ignorant of how cap+trade works.

4) 'Your' is possessive, not 'You're'.

;)

[psychopomp]

16. US Navy contributes more to global warming than all the auto traffic in the US

Too lazy to search for a link right now.

[OwnedByFerrets]

7. Sheesh, what next....nm, I dont really want to know.

[tinwi]

8. I thought that was the world's largest supply of fresh water

and had even wondered why it was not being harvested since it was melting anyway and sent to desert areas. My bad

[KamaAina]

9. How exactly would you propose to send it to the desert?

the nearest one, in the US Southwest and Mexico, would be some 4,000 miles away.

[krispos42]

10. I wonder how long before some really nasty disease...

...thaws out from some long-dead frozen seal corpse or something.

[enki23]

12. Ha. Like getting pregnant and mobilizing all the lead in your bones.

Anyway, a bit of extra PCBs and such in the top thin layer of arctic ice aren't really much of a concern, in the grander scheme. Compared to the rest of the disruption, it will probably be completely unnoticeable.

[applegrove]

13. I once stayed at a cabin near a glacier in Banff National Park. The water in puddles

there was really strange colours: bright red, electric blue, Orange.... So we of course didn't drink it. They did a study a few years ago which said that they found nuclear fallout on that Bo glacier. Must have been from some Russian test back in the 1950s or so. But, yeah, stuff sticks to the ice and never washes away. And now all that accumulated poison from the last 200 years of human polution is all going to be exposed and drain away at one time.

[Lance_Boyle]

19. that's mineral and sediment coloration

Makes for very pretty water colors - this is not Russian (or other) nuclear fallout, except in the sense that the minerals are made of elements formed in the nuclear fusion of Suns or Supernovae.

[applegrove]

20. No those were two separate ideas. The colored water is I guess what you described. 20 years

later I read a newspaper story that stated they found nuclear fallout at that very same place: Bo Glacier. I assumed the two were connected but you have clarifyed for me. That still leaves nuclear fallout on Bo Glacier. And probably on other yearround frozen spots too.

[raccoon]

14. Uh-oh. Recd. nt

[progressoid]

17. Of the consequences of global climate change,

I don't think this will be much to worry about.

There are going to be a LOT more serious issues to deal with soon.

[Uncle Joe]

18. Just another straw to put on the camel's back.

Thanks for the thread, G_j.