Environment & Energy

Judi Lynn

(160,542 posts) Mon Apr 15, 2019, 12:12 PM Apr 2019

A Huge Amount of Nuclear Fallout Is Embedded in Glaciers, And They're Starting to Melt

DAVID NIELD 12 APR 2019

As we continue to see warming glaciers collapse and melt into the ocean, we're potentially looking at a ticking time bomb of buried nuclear material, according to new research.

Scientists have analysed 17 glacier sites and found fallout radionuclides (FRNs) trapped within ice surface sediment called cryoconite at all of them – covering the Arctic, Iceland, the European Alps, Antarctica and other areas. In some cases concentrations of radioactive material are orders of magnitude higher than in areas that don't have glaciers.

The findings highlight just how far fallout from nuclear disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima can travel, as well as sounding a warning that ongoing climate change could come with another unwanted consequence – re-released radioactive material.

"Research into the impact of nuclear accidents has previously focussed on their effects on human and ecosystem health in non-glaciated areas," says one of the team, Caroline Clason from the University of Plymouth in the UK.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-a-bunch-of-nuclear-fallout-embedded-in-glaciers-and-they-re-starting-to-melt

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A Huge Amount of Nuclear Fallout Is Embedded in Glaciers, And They're Starting to Melt (Original Post) Judi Lynn Apr 2019 OP

It would be useful to understand some science to... NNadir Apr 2019 #1

NNadir

(33,523 posts)

1. It would be useful to understand some science to...

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Mon Apr 15, 2019, 04:49 PM

Apr 2019

...evaluate this extremely nonsensical screaming terror headline.

A 70 kg human being contains about 140 grams of natural potassium, which contains about 0.01638 grams of pure radioactive potassium 40, a residue of the supernova ash that the entire Earth represents.

You would die instantly without this potassium. Given the specific activity of K-40 this amounts to approximately 4500 Beq of radioactivity for a nucleus whose decay energy is twice that of Cesium-137.

Now I'm sure that all the membership of Greenpeace imagine themselves rappelling up a glacier to melt the most contaminated kg of glacial ice to drink it.

However, the probability that doing so will lead to their death is considerably smaller than the probability that that are carcinogenic combustion product from an automobile that might be used to drive to a glacier will kill them is much higher, but still relatively close to zero.

It would be a sane world when worldwide common and far more dangerous pollutants got one one thousandth as much attention as a moderately radioactive chunk of ice on a glacier, but perhaps that is too much to expect.

If one wants to know why the entire planet is being actively destroyed by climate change, reading headlines like this would be a good place to start.

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