New research recently published in Nature Climate Change indicates that the thawing of permafrost could pose serious threats to health and that it would release bacteria resistant to antibiotics, unknown viruses and even radioactive waste from the Cold War.
Permafrost is a frozen area of about 23 million square kilometers located in the northern hemisphere. Most of the Arctic permafrost is up to a million years old, and generally the deeper it is, the older it is.
Climate change is causing the Arctic to warm faster than the rest of the planet, and it is estimated that up to two-thirds of the permafrost near the surface could disappear by 2100 . This icy layer has harbored a wide range of chemical compounds for millennia, whether through natural processes, accidents, or deliberate storage. With the thaw they could rise to the surface, in addition to releasing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.
A new study has concluded that the implications of declining permafrost could be much more widespread, with the potential for the release of bacteria, unknown viruses, nuclear waste, radiation , and other chemicals of concern.
The paper describes how deep permafrost, which is more than three meters away, is one of the few environments on Earth that has not been exposed to modern antibiotics . More than 100 microorganisms present in the deep permafrost of Siberia have been found to be resistant to these drugs. As the permafrost melts, there is a chance that these bacteria will mix with the meltwater and create new antibiotic resistant strains.
Another risk researchers have found is from fossil fuel by-products , which have been making their way into permafrost since the beginning of the industrial revolution. The Arctic also contains deposits of natural metals, including arsenic, mercury and nickel, which have been mined for decades and caused extensive contamination with waste materials on tens of millions of hectares.
Now banned pollutants and chemicals, such as the insecticide dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, DDT, which were transported to the Arctic in atmospheric form and eventually trapped in permafrost, risk re-permeating the atmosphere.
In addition, increased water flow means that pollutants can be widely dispersed, affecting animals as well, and reaching the human food chain .
There is also a greater margin for the transport of pollutants, bacteria and viruses. More than 1,000 settlements, be they resource extraction projects, military and scientific, have been created in the permafrost during the last 70 years. That, along with the local population, increases the likelihood of accidental contact or release. The risks of emerging micro-organisms and chemicals within permafrost are poorly understood and much of them are not quantified. The researchers say that further investigation of the area is necessary to gain a better understanding of the risks and develop mitigation strategies.
Lead study author Kimberley Miner of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement: “We have very little knowledge of what kinds of extremophiles (microbes that live in many different conditions for a long time) have the potential These are microbes that have co-evolved with animals like giant sloths or mammoths, and we have no idea what they might do when released into our ecosystems . “” It is important to understand the secondary and tertiary impacts of these terrestrial changes to large scale, such as permafrost thawing. While some of the dangers associated with the thawing of up to a million years of material have been captured, we are a long way from being able to model and predict exactly when and where they will happen. This research is critical. “
