Langer et al. have identified several thousand of industrial sites where potentially hazardous substances are actively handled or stored in the permafrost-dominated regions of the Arctic. Ongoing climate warming and thawing of the permafrost will increase the risk of contamination and mobilization of toxic substances from these sites, posing a serious additional threat of climate change to the environment.
The article can be read at the journal website.
Langer, M., von Deimling, T.S., Westermann, S., Rolph, R., Rutte, R., Antonova, S., Rachold, V., Schultz, M., Oehme, A., Grosse, G., 2023. Thawing permafrost poses environmental threat to thousands of sites with legacy industrial contamination. Nat Commun 14, 1721. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37276-4