“Nghiem said scientists were still trying to determine why the Arctic had lost an estimated one million square kilometers of perennial sea ice over the last 10 years, saying it could be due to a change in wind patterns over that time period.”
Reuters reports:
Significant declines in perennial Arctic sea ice over the past decade may be intensifying a chemical reaction that leads to deposits of toxic mercury, a NASA-led study showed on Thursday.
The study found that thick, perennial Arctic sea ice was being replaced by a thinner and saltier ice that releases bromine into the air when it interacts with sunlight and cold, said Son Nghiem, a NASA researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
That in turn triggers a chemical reaction called a “bromine explosion” that turns gaseous mercury in the atmosphere into a toxic pollutant that falls on snow, land and ice and can accumulate in fish, said Nghiem, lead author of the study…
Yeah…uhh..mercury is pretty heavy :/ And since when is mercury in frozen water? Glaciers aren’t melting, anyways.