Potential impacts of mercury released from thawing permafrost

Permafrost locks away the largest reservoir of mercury on the planet, but climate warming threatens to thaw these systems. Here the authors use models to show that unconstrained fossil fuel burning will dramatically increase the amount of mercury released into future ecosystems.

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature Communications
Main Authors: Kevin Schaefer, Yasin Elshorbany, Elchin Jafarov, Paul F. Schuster, Robert G. Striegl, Kimberly P. Wickland, Elsie M. Sunderland
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2020
Subjects:
Science
Q
permafrost
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18398-5
https://doaj.org/article/4f2c00377d6c4978a3062409c329c81d
Description
Summary:Permafrost locks away the largest reservoir of mercury on the planet, but climate warming threatens to thaw these systems. Here the authors use models to show that unconstrained fossil fuel burning will dramatically increase the amount of mercury released into future ecosystems.

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