http://www.newsweek.com/32-million-gallons-mercury-north-america-climate-change-permafrost-802005
Scientist have recently measured the amount of mercury that is in Earths permafrost, and they discovered something that is greatly consequential. 32 million gallons of mercury lies in the permafrost in North America and another 15 million gallons in Antarctica. As long as the mercury remains frozen it has no real danger to the environment. The problem is scientists know that the global temperature is rising, and permafrost in both Antarctica and Alaska are melting.
According to the New York times the permafrost in Alaska and Antarctica are melting much more rapidly because there temperatures are rising much quicker than the rest of the world. In Alaska they predict that by 2050 most of the permafrost would be thawed out. This is very dangerous for life in Alaska, which is already feeling the affects climate change. Not only does permafrost contain mercury but also twice as much carbon as there is in our atmosphere. Once this carbon is released into the atmosphere it will speed up the rate of global temperature rising. In fact they state that it could increase global temperatures by 1.7 degrees. That may seem like its not a lot but a slight change in global temperatures could in fact have huge affects!
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/23/climate/alaska-permafrost-thawing.html
Lets get back to the affects of mercury tho! The thawing of Earths permafrost could release millions of millions of gallons of mercury into the environment and that is really bad for life. Mercury would escape into the worlds oceans and contaminate them greatly affecting the ecosystems and the food chain. Once the worlds waters are contaminated organisms such as fish and bacteria that live in the oceans would absorb the harmful chemical into there body and any animal thats consumes on those organisms would also be contaminated with mercury thus affecting the food web. This process of chemicals moving through the food web is called biomagnification which is basically the same as energy moving from the bottom of the food chain to the top overtime affecting the larger organisms. The fish we humans eat could be greatly contaminated and could cause some villages and places where sea food is the dominant food source to be forced to find other places for food.
When mercury comes into contact with microorganisms after contamination it becomes a sort of organic mercury methyl mercury which is a very harmful neurotoxin. Exposure to this harmful toxin is dangerous to the peripheral and central nervous system and can cause many birth defects. Some of the main health effects are as follows: Reproductive effects, Immunotoxicity, Cardiovascular effects, and Carcinogenicity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3514465/
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Wow! Im shook because this is real life danger and it greatly saddens me that were the cause of this and yet people deny the real life facts of climate change. Lately the ruckus of climate change makes it feel like an apocolaypse is on its way. Don't get me wrong climate change is real facts! You would be ignorant to ignore the recent data! People need to realize that this is real life shit!! And that we are not as invincible as society makes it seem!! We need to forget our differences and focus on the number ONE "law" of evolution! EXTINCTION (Like my college anthropology teacher put it)! Human Extinction is just as real as any other organisms that has gone extinct! In fact, 99.9% of all life that has ever existed on Earth have gone extinct. There has been 5 mass extinctions that we know of now and many scientists believe that we may be near the 6th one, and it could be the cause of human imprint on the environment!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/extinction/massext/statement_03.html
But the questions that come up in my mind are as follows: Is there anyway we could stop contamination of our oceans? If we completely halted emissions could we stop the thawing or at least slow down the thawing of the permafrost? Those are all the questions I could really come up with right now haha! But what are your thoughts? What are your questions? What are your Ideas? Support and comment below!!