The most recent research presented at this year’s European Geosciences Union General Assembly shows that radioactive debris stored in glaciers can actually become a ticking time bomb.
The area of Earth’s glaciers is shrinking rapidly. Recent research shows that the rate of glacial melting is 18 percent higher than previously predicted and five times its rate in the 1960s.
This phenomenon has many consequences: destroying the habitat of polar bears; causing sea level rise; climate change in a bad direction; and make ancient diseases reappear.
And now, melting glaciers has come up with another problem for us to worry about. That’s a huge amount of nuclear dust buried in Earth’s giant ice sheet. “Radioactive iceberg” sounds like a dodgy conspiracy hidden behind the Earth disaster in the movie Geostorm. And yet, the most recent research presented at this year’s European Geosciences Union General Assembly shows that radioactive debris stored in glaciers can actually become a ticking time bomb.
The amount of cryoconite on glaciers can accumulate radioactivity to potentially dangerous levels.
Lead researcher, Caroline Clason, from the University of Plymouth, said: “Previous studies on nuclear accidents have only focused on their impacts on human health and ecosystems in the different regions of the world. the area is not frozen. But evidence suggests that cryoconite on glaciers can accumulate radioactivity to potentially dangerous levels.”
This is the first time that an international team of researchers has embarked on an analysis of the nuclear content of glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic ; simultaneously in the Alps, Caucasus Mountains, British Columbia and Iceland. Man-made radioactive material levels were surveyed at 17 sites. As a result, glacial radioactivity concentrations were on average 10 times (or more) times higher than in non-glacial sites.
The explanation for this result is the release of radioactive particles after nuclear disasters like Chernobyl or Fukushima. These particles are light and can fly very far.
Usually, they return to the ground as acid rain, where they can be absorbed into the soil or consumed by plants. As a result, radiation concentrations are higher in places like Chernobyl and Fukushima. At the same time, cancer rates, infertility rates increased and the existence of radioactive pigs appeared. Some of these particles, however, will travel to the poles, where they fall as snow, fall on ice, form heavy sediments, and accumulate in denser concentrations.
The team analyzed the nuclear composition of the glacier. And not only did they find nuclear dust from the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, but they also found material from decades of other nuclear weapons testing.
“We’re talking about weapons testing from the 1950s and 1960s onward, an era in the development of bombs and heavy weapons,” said Ms.
While research shows that radioactive material in the food chain is definitely not good for us, the team still isn’t clear what the presence of this nuclear fallout means. The team hopes to figure out its impact.
Ms. Clason said: “Very high concentrations of radionuclides have been found in several recent field studies, but we do not yet know their exact impact. We are embarking on a collaborative effort to Because obviously, this is a very serious problem for the immediate environment and the communities downstream. We need to find any invisible threats they might be facing. Future”.