Boreal Fires Releasing Stored Mercury At 15X Previous Calculations - AFP

[hatrack]

Climate change appears to be contributing to the waking of a toxic sleeping giant in the most northern wetlands of North America. Mercury, released into the atmosphere most prodigiously with the launching of the industrial age, falls back onto Earth and accumulates, particularly in North American wetlands.
Researchers at Michigan State University, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and the Canadian Forest Service find that wildfires, which are becoming more frequent and intense, are unleashing this sequestered mercury at levels up to 15 times greater than previously calculated. Their report was published 19 August in Geophysical Research Letters.

"This study makes the point that while peat lands are typically viewed as very wet and stagnant places, they do burn in continental regions, especially late in the season when water tables are depressed," said Merritt Turetsky, lead author of the study. "When peat lands burn, they can release a huge amount of mercury that overwhelms regional atmospheric emissions. our study is new in that it looks to the soil record to tell us what happens when peat soil burns, soil that has been like a sponge for mercury for a long time."

Normal atmospheric conditions naturally carry the mercury emitted from burning fossil fuel and other industry northward, where it eventually settles on land or water surfaces. The cold, wet soils of the boreal forest region in Alaska and northern Canada have been efficient in retaining, or sequestering, mercury.

"When we walk across the surface of a peat land, we are standing on many thousands of years of peat accumulation," Turetsky said. "This type of wetland is actually doing us a service. Peat lands have been storing mercury from the atmosphere since well before and during the Industrial Revolution, locking it in peat where it's not causing any biological harm, away from the food web."

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Boreal_Fires_Release_Increased_Mercury_Into_Atmosphere_999.html

[nam78_two]

1. you post some great links

:hi:
Thanks!

[Mnemosyne]

2. It's everywhere. n/t

[tex-wyo-dem]

3. Yet another example...

Of how our past and current excesses will come back to haunt us and every other living thing on this planet.

Yet another example of how global warming will have, in many cases, far reaching and formally unimaginable concequences...and this is really only the beginning.

Thank you, hatrack, for your invaluable contributions to DU.