Posted on 10/14/2009 8:56:03 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
GENEVA (AFP) – Swiss researchers have found that Alpine glaciers melting under the impact of climate change are releasing highly toxic pollutants that had been absorbed by the ice for decades.
They warned in a study abstract published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology that it could have a "dire environmental impact" on "pristine mountain areas" as global warming accelerates.
Much of the pollution was dumped on Europe's biggest mountain range by atmospheric currents from further afield, according to the researchers at three Swiss scientific institutes.
Their study of layers of sediment from an Alpine lake formed by a hydroelectric dam built in central Switzerland in 1953 revealed "sharp" build-ups of now banned chemical compounds from industry and farming, including dioxins and pesticides like DDT.
"We can confirm with the help of these layers that, in the 1960s and 1970s, POPs (Persistant Organic Pollutants) were produced in great quantities and were also deposited in this Alpine lake," said one of the authors, Christian Bogdal, of the Swiss Federal Laboratory for Materials Testing and Research.
But while the concentration of POPs fell after the 1970s as many of those compounds were banned, the scientists found an unusual resurgence in more recent sediment from the past 10 to 15 years.
They concluded that the lake, the Oberaarsee, was largely fed by water from a nearby melting glacier that was releasing pollutants at a level comparable to when the compounds were still in use.
"At this stage our study indicates that accelerated glacier melting due to global warming may also account for enhanced release of legacy organic pollutants at historically high levels," according to the full study.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The Aletsch glacier, located near the mountain resort of Bettmeralp, pictured in 2007. Swiss researchers have found that Alpine glaciers melting under the impact of climate change are releasing highly toxic pollutants that had been absorbed by the ice for decades. (AFP/File/Fabrice Coffrini)
Somebody wake me up when we’re back from our vacation away from sanity.
Not to worry....with no sunspots, the resulting ice age will freeze up all the pollutants.
So we’re doomed then?
“Somebody wake me up when we’re back from our vacation away from sanity.”
*wastedyears*?
I think you’re gonna be sleeping a heckuva long time!
“toxic global warming” sheesh...next thing we’ll b reading about is “gay, transexual global warming”!!!
We’re doomed, we’ll never make it.
Only billions of dollars will save us!
Oh Good God!!! When will this constant handwringing end??!!
appears so
Probably toxic stuff from the middle ages to the Iron age....ya know....stuff we don’t even USE ANYMORE! If That! Otherwise...my first thought was...”Yellow snow?”
So after being unleashed from ice, they went straight down to the bottom of the lake and got stuck there. I find it hard to be terrorized by this.
What complete cr*pola. They’re desperate.
Yup. Suicide now is the only way to avoid the expected pain.
Prove it
I subscribed to ‘Terrible Living’ as advertised on Rush’s show. THANKS Terrible Living!
Then throw in some DDT from the 1950's that is still floating around and you have:
DDT + Acid Rain + Global Warming = mankind is doomed again.
In Roman times there were no Alpine glaciers. The very highest peaks were locked in year round snow (as today) but lower down the tree line was considerably higher than at present. Throughout the middle ages there was an important north/south trade route passing through what today is the Theodulgletscher near modern day Zermatt. By the 1600’s the route was impassable and stopped being used. At present, most glaciers in the region are shrinking once again.
Oh geez, now they are acting as if they are God.
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