Buried toxic waste from old mining operations could destroy ecosystems as warming thaws the Arctic permafrost

Forget mainstream news; even meme pages on social media are littered with exasperated groans of people finding out scientists have dug out ancient "zombie" microbes from the Arctic permafrost.

While it is somewhat hard to pinpoint how much of this paranoia is actually justified, it might not be the only foe we uncover as global warming tears through the permafrost.

Despite seeming wild and untouched, the Arctic, being rich in mineral resources, has been home to many industrial facilities such as oilfields, mines and military bases since the end of the 19th century.

Unfortunately, this was far from the time when the world cared about conservation and sustainability, and being not as strictly checked, these corporations buried all their toxic waste under the permafrost — frozen surface soil encompassing substantial parts of Alaska, Greenland, Canada and Siberia.

This dumping was largely done under the assumption that the permafrost was stable and here to stay. But as we know, the masses didn't catch wind of the global warming phenomenon until it was too late. In fact, studies from the time actually hinted otherwise.

"A major problem is that for a long time, the consequences of global warming and thawing permafrost were not taken into account and definitely underestimated. There are many engineering studies from that time that consider permafrost as a favourable condition for the disposal of industrial legacies and other wastes," notes Moritz Langer, one of the study authors, told The Indian Express.

"Today, these former practices — some of which are still in use — are becoming an increasing problem as large parts of the Arctic are already affected by thawing permafrost."

What are these waste products exactly? The study mentions a lot of things encompassing stuff from drilling and mining wastes to toxic substances such as mine waste heaps, heavy metals and radioactive wastes. All of these threaten to be exposed back to the Arctic environment once warming melts the permafrost.

Adding to the agony is the fact that studies have shown that the Arctic is heating up nearly four times as fast as the rest of the planet. As the permafrost thaws, it could also destabilise the existing infrastructure and contaminated sites, unleashing a flurry of toxic waste that could threaten species living in the area and the people who eat them.

According to the study, the risk stems from about 1,000 industrial sites and 2,200 to 4,800 contaminated areas that are at risk of destabilisation. However, if we touch the feared 2°C warming target, all of these already dreary numbers could more than double.

And there's also the inherent risks associated with a melting Arctic. The area is critical for several planetary regulations, such as reflecting most of the Sun's radiation back into space. In addition, the warming permafrost could release an astronomical amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

"Arctic permafrost alone holds an estimated 1,700 billion metric tons of carbon, including methane and carbon dioxide. That's roughly 51 times the amount of carbon the world released as fossil fuel emissions in 2019," a NASA report outlines. Action to contain these consequences is critical.

The findings of this study have been published in Nature Communications and can be accessed here.

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