Warming temperatures in the Arctic are causing the release of toxic pollutants long trapped in the region’s ice, snow, and ocean waters, a new study says. In an analysis of air-monitoring data collected at sites in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago and the Canadian province of Nunavut, researchers say there is evidence that man-made chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have been “remobilized” into the Arctic atmosphere over the last 20 years. They say there is a risk that the chemicals, some of which were banned decades ago, will eventually reach food and water supplies and accumulate in the body fat of humans and other animals. “The chemicals are known to be semi-volatile,” said Haley Hung, a scientist with Environment Canada’s Air Quality Division and co-author of the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. “They have the ability to evaporate out of storage” if temperatures are warm enough.
Warming Arctic Temperatures Are Causing Release of Long-Buried Toxins
More From E360
-
E360 Film Contest
The Amazon Rainforest Approaches a Point of No Return
-
Biodiversity
Shrinking Cod: How Humans Are Impacting the Evolution of Species
-
Cities
‘Sponge City’: How Copenhagen Is Adapting to a Wetter Future
-
INTERVIEW
On Controlling Fire, New Lessons from a Deep Indigenous Past
-
Solutions
Paying the People: Liberia’s Novel Plan to Save Its Forests
-
OPINION
Forest Service Plan Threatens the Heart of an Alaskan Wilderness
-
INTERVIEW
Pakistan’s Solar Revolution Is Bringing Power to the People
-
Food & Agriculture
In Uganda, Deadly Landslides Force an Agricultural Reckoning
-
Energy
Why U.S. Geothermal May Advance, Despite Political Headwinds
-
Food & Agriculture
In War Zones, a Race to Save Key Seeds Needed to Feed the World
-
Climate
Lightning Strikes the Arctic: What Will It Mean for the Far North?
-
RIVERS
A Win for Farmers and Tribes Brings New Hope to the Klamath