A previously underestimated risk lurks in the frozen soil of the Arctic.
A previously underestimated risk lurks in the frozen soil of the Arctic. When the ground thaws and becomes unstable in response to climate change, it can lead to the collapse of industrial infrastructure, and in turn to the increased release of pollutants. Moreover, contaminations already present will be able to more easily spread throughout ecosystems. A team led by Moritz Langer and Guido Grosse from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Potsdam investigated the potential scale of this problem. According to their findings, there are at least 13,000 to 20,000 contaminated sites in the Arctic that could pose a serious risk in the future. Accordingly, long-term strategies for handling this volatile legacy are urgently called for, as the experts explain in the journal Nature Communications.
Many of us picture the Arctic as largely untouched wilderness. But that has long-since ceased to be true for all of the continent. It is also home to oilfields and pipelines, mines and various other industrial activities. The corresponding facilities were built on a foundation once considered to be particularly stable and reliable: permafrost. This unique type of soil, which can be found in large expanses of the Northern Hemisphere, only thaws at the surface in summer. The remainder, extending up to hundreds of metres down, remains frozen year-round.
Read more at: Alfred Wegener Institute
An oil pipeline runs through the Alaskan wilderness. (Photo Credit: Moritz Langer)
