What crisis will a warming bring? As we all know, there may be many very ancient viruses in the ice, and once the ice melts, human beings will face the danger of these viruses being re-released.
In fact, there is a very worrying substance in the ice, which is dangerous chemicals and radioactive materials. People may be wondering why these dangerous substances are hidden in the ice of the Arctic, in fact, these substances can be traced back to the Cold War, so where these harmful and toxic substances come from, how they come from, they all understand.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="6" > Arctic tundra</h1>
In past studies, researchers have found that these ice layers contain many pollutants such as nuclear explosions, mercury, arsenic and DDT. The ice contains a microorganism called Matusara, which is actually a longevity gene of an organism, and its carriers tend to live very long, and if a human carries this gene, it is easy to live to the level of one hundred years old.
If the ice in the Arctic melts, the microbes with the Matusara gene will be released, and they are naturally very resistant to antibiotics, and if they enter human society, they will bring endless disasters.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > what is permafrost</h1>
What is the difference between permafrost and ordinary soil? Is it frozen soil? How do people define permafrost?
According to the definition of the U.S. Ice and Snow Data Center, ground frozen for two or more consecutive years, including soil or soil mixed with ice and soil, can be called permafrost. Of course, if the freezing time is shorter, it may be short-term frozen soil or seasonal permafrost, and their thickness is much thinner than that of permanent thick soil.
According to relevant statistics, there are 23 million square kilometers of permafrost in the northern hemisphere, and the shallowest thickness may be about 1 meter, while the deepest may reach 1000 meters.
These permafrosts in the Arctic region can be traced back to history, may be older than human history, may be 800,000-1 million years old, in the context of global warming, the entire Arctic landscape is undergoing unprecedented harm. The melting of permafrost is not simply the softness of the soil layer, in fact, the frozen soil will further release a large amount of carbon dioxide and methane during the melting process, so it forms a vicious circle with global warming.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="14" > heavy metals in frozen soil</h1>
However, the current human hazards to pollutants in permafrost are not well understood. The harm of microorganisms and viruses is well known, but in fact few people know what new disasters will be brought about by the volatilization of these nuclear wastes and compounds.
Around the 1950s, nuclear tests began, and much of the radioactive garbage was dumped in the Arctic. Between the end of World War II and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and the Soviet Union conducted extensive nuclear tests and studies in the Arctic, leaving high levels of radioactive waste in arctic soil and permafrost.
Between 1959 and 1991, the Soviet Union detonated 265 megatons of nuclear power in the Novayas, and they sank more than 100 decommissioned nuclear submarines in the Barents and Kara Seas, releasing large quantities of radioactive plutonium and cesium, which we can detect even today in the sediments, plants and soils of the seafloor in the region.
The United States established a nuclear power research center in Greenland, which produces a large amount of nuclear waste every year, and the United States abandoned the site in 1967, after which all the nuclear waste generated by this center was placed under ice. In 1968, a U.S. bomber crashed near The Danish Thule Air Base in Greenland, its nuclear missile payload ruptured, and the uranium and plutonium in four bombs were released into the ice sheet, and some studies showed that the radiation caused by the crash could not completely subside even by 2500 years.
The mining industry that has flourished in the Arctic in recent years has also led to the creation of many wastes containing heavy metal poisons in the vicinity of the Arctic, which penetrate deep into the soil. The researchers predict that 880,000 tons of mercury will be stored in permafrost, and arctic mercury emissions will increase by 200 percent by 2300, at current trends.
The snow was white, but it didn't seem as pure as we thought. A world of ice and snow, I don't know when it has become a dumping ground for humans to dump waste. What we can do now is to control the trend of climate warming and prevent the expansion of harm. The predecessors planted trees and the latter were cool, and the sins of the former people often had to be repaid by the descendants.
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