Melting Arctic Ice Releases Long-Stored Toxic Chemicals

Photo courtesy: Andy Tinkham / cc via TreeHugger

I have only just blogged about 2011 setting a new record for Arctic ice melt when a study is released that states the melting ice is releasing toxic chemicals long stored in the frozen Arctic.

As if the threat of rising sea-levels due to rising global temperatures weren't enough cause for concern, new research suggests that as arctic ice melts, it may be releasing much more than just water. According to researchers studying the melting polar caps, as snow cover dwindles as a result of climate change, toxic chemicals stored in the ice from decades of pollution are being 'remobilized' back into the atmosphere -- potentially exposing humans and wildlife to substances known to cause illness and death, for decades to come.

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs), which include such nasty compounds as DTD, lindane, and chlordane, were once commonly used in the agriculture industry as pesticides -- though scientists soon learned that these chemicals have grave consequences on human and environmental health. Ten years ago, POPs were largely banned worldwide, but the chemicals proved resilient and capable of long-range transport, which is why POPs can be detected even in places where they've never been used.

Ultimately, a significant amount of the POPs ended up in the cold, arctic regions where icy temperatures effectively 'trapped' the chemicals -- preventing them from being spread into the environment. But now, say researcher from Canada, Norway, and China, as that regions of the world experiences warming associated with climate change, those toxins are being released.

"Our results indicate that a wide range of POPs have been remobilized into the Arctic atmosphere over the past two decades as a result of climate change, confirming that Arctic warming could undermine global efforts to reduce environmental and human exposure to these toxic chemicals," write the team of scientists, as reported by The New York Times.

The report continues:

Jordi Dach, a scientist at the Barcelona, Spain-based Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research, said the new study provided convincing evidence of the long-suspected movement of POPs from Arctic reservoirs into the atmosphere.

The new study "demonstrates that climate change can remobilize POPs stored in water, snow, ice and presumably soils -- and that this process is already occurring in the Arctic region," he wrote in an essay accompanying the new study.

Eventually, Dachs said, atmospheric circulation patterns could carry the newly liberated POPs to other parts of the globe.

Despite years of relatively low levels of POPs detected, thanks to the arctic storage, the pollutants were never gone entirely. As global temperatures rise, with more and more ice sheets melting at the poles, the level of POPs re-released into the environment is bound to increase as well -- creating a lasting legacy which could impact generations to come, in more ways than one.

And, we have only ourselves to blame.

Via TreeHugger

2011 - Record Arctic Ice Melt

Arctic sea ice, seen by satellite.
Photo courtesy: NASA.

This year could be well on its way toward earning a dubious spot in the record books.

Arctic sea ice has melted away with astonishing speed in the first half of July, at an average rate of about 46,000 square miles (120,000 square kilometers) per day, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo.

That's equivalent to an area roughly the size of Pennsylvania melting into the sea every 24 hours.

"That's relatively fast," said Julienne Stroeve, a research scientist at the NSIDC.

Already, sea ice extent — how far ice extends across the ocean — this year is below the extent for the same time in 2007, a year which, in September, saw the lowest sea ice coverage ever recorded.

As of July 17 this year, sea ice covered 2.92 million square miles (7.56 million square kilometers) of the frigid Arctic Ocean. That may sound like a lot, but it's 865,000 square miles (2.24 million square kilometers) below the 1979 to 2000 average.

Arctic sea ice extent. The orange line represents the median extent from 1979-2000. Photo courtesy: NSIDC.

However, Stroeve said, much of what happens in the coming days depends on the weather.

"Unless things change in the next few weeks, we might have a new record for July," Stroeve told OurAmazingPlanet. "Certainly overall, we think the ice is thinner overall leading up to this season than it was in 2007."

The ebb and flow of Arctic sea ice is a yearly occurrence. Each fall, as Northern Hemisphere temperatures drop, ice extends outward, away from the land and out over the ocean; each spring, with the onset of warmer weather, the ice recedes. However, the reach of the sea ice has declined steadily since satellite records began in 1979.

Researchers have found that the earlier Arctic ice begins to melt in the spring, the greater the overall melt for the year as a whole.

In 2011, in the Chukchi Sea, near Alaska, and the Barents, Kara and Laptev Seas, near Finland and Russia, NASA researchers found melt began two weeks to two months earlier than the 1979 to 2000 average.

This year, much of the Arctic has been in the grip of a warm spell.

Like the conditions that sparked the heat wave running roughshod over huge parts of the United States, a high pressure system has been parked over the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska, since June, bringing warmer temperatures to the Arctic as a whole. Air temperatures at the North Pole are a full 11 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit (6 to 8 degrees Celsius) warmer than usual.

In addition, high pressure systems are associated with clear skies, Stroeve said, so the ice is often at the mercy of the sun's rays for the full Arctic day, prompting further melting.

Although Stroeve said a change in the weather could dramatically change the ultimate fate of the Arctic's sea ice for 2011, she said a new record isn't out of the question.

"It's too early to say we're going to have a new record low," Stroeve said, "but I would say it's certainly possible with the way things have been going."