Climate warming is remobilizing toxic pollutants deposited in Arctic ice and sea water.
Long-lived or 'persistent' organic pollutants (POPs), which include chlorinated pesticides and industrial chemicals, travel in the atmosphere to the high north, where they accumulate. They have been regulated for several decades, but sea-ice retreat and rising temperatures seem to be returning some of the more volatile compounds stored in Arctic reservoirs to the atmosphere.
Jianmin Ma and Hayley Hung of Environment Canada in Toronto and their team analysed the concentrations of POPs measured since 1993 at two Arctic stations. When the effect of regulation was removed, several of the compounds showed increasing atmospheric levels, corresponding with rising Arctic temperatures and decreasing sea-ice cover. A simulation of the impact of climate change on the chemicals' atmospheric abundance confirmed this finding.
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Air pollutants make a comeback. Nature 475, 426 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/475426a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/475426a
