Melting permafrost could release nuclear waste and pathogens
A team of scientists has discovered that thawing permafrost could release a dangerous legacy of the Cold War – nuclear waste that is still radioactive. In addition, the release of pathogenic microorganisms is possible, reports Nature Climate Change. Melting Arctic glaciers could release radioactive waste from Cold War-era nuclear submarines and reactors. The Arctic’s nine million square miles of ice have been accumulating for more than a million years a variety of substances that could be released into the air and water due to climate change.
Dagestan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan announced an environmental disaster in the Caspian Sea
The water level in the Caspian Sea is rapidly decreasing; since 1996, the water level in the Caspian Sea has dropped by almost three meters. Fishing is rapidly declining, ships cannot enter the port due to shallowing. Some scientists call the situation with the Caspian shallowing catastrophic. The water level has dropped so much that shipping in the port of Makhachkala is increasingly stopped after a storm. And these days the ships are in the roadstead near Makhachkala because they cannot enter the port – the canals are covered with sand.
The operator of the emergency Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant discharges low-level radioactive water, but in very large quantities
According to the company’s materials, the concentration of tritium in the water to be discharged is 55-77 becquerels per liter, which is significantly less than the established standard of 1,500 becquerels per liter. The total volume of water released from the emergency Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant in Japan during the 2023 fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2024, will be 31.2 thousand tons with a radioactive tritium concentration of 5 trillion becquerels.