Glacial melting may release pollutants
Scientists from Switzerland believe glacial melting may be behind a mysterious increase in organic pollutants in Alpine lakes despite the decrease use of those compounds found in things like pesticides, paints and other products.
In a study scheduled for publication in early November, researchers show how those pollutants are increasing in the glacier-fed Lake Oberar in the Bernese Alps.
They believe those contaminants were deposited during earlier decades, preserved and then released by glacial melting.
“Considering ongoing global warming and accelerated massive glacial melting predicted for our future, our study indicates the potential for environmental impacts due to pollutants delivered into pristine mountainous areas,” said Christian Bogdal, the lead researcher from the Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering in Zurich.
Ecospeak visited Glacier National Park in Montana last month to see that area’s vanishing glaciers. In 1850, there were about 150 within the park’s boundaries. Today, there are about 26. Climate models predict all the park’s glaciers will be gone by 2030.
Glaciers disappearing in that beautiful part of our country is bad enough. To think that melting may be causing the release of once-trapped pollutants is even more troubling.
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Kim McGuire joined the Post-Dispatch in August 2007. She has covered the environment for almost 10 years while working at The Denver Post and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. In 2004, McGuire was named a Ted Scripps fellow in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder. 
I keep reading that the continued warming of the earth is going to create mass flooding from all of the melting glaciers and ice packs from around the world. If the eastern half of Antarctica has lost so much ice and the glaciers are reseeding at such a rapid rate, shouldn’t the levels of the ocean already be increasing?
Global warming is real and manmade. It has been hastened by industrialization of the Third world especially India and China. If the 2.5 billion people living in these two socialist countries enjoy all the modernity we have here in the first world global warming will worsen. The full effects of global warming are unknown but man can ill afford to battle nature. There is little man can do against storms, tidal waves, earthquakes, famine, drought, and disease all of which we know is made worse by global warming and the full effects are unknown. We can thank the GOP for this mess especially Nixon.
Mike,
Why have sea levels not risen yet?
Such an informative post! I think by this the sea level will increase . I am wondering if I can share your article in the bookmarks of society,Then more friends can talk about this problem.
Christmas,
All we here heard from the doomsday forecasts is all of the ice is melting. If that is true and we have lost so much, why have sea levels not risen? Where did all of this water go? Just because you can not answer a questions does not make it a bad question. It makes you uninformed. Thanks for playing.