Wildfires unleash mercury from Arctic

Climate changes that have brought more fires to boreal peatlands also could create more heavy-metal air pollution.

As the planet

The team then estimated on the basis of recent annual burns the acreage that could burn under different climate scenarios. In the past, researchers had not added peat fires into their models, but the new results find a 15-fold difference in mercury emissions once peatlands were added.

Warmer temperatures, the researchers also note, will lead to higher rates of methylation, the microbial process that makes mercury available for animals to accumulate. Climate change and fire may cooperate to make mercury even more problematic in a region already contaminated with the metal.

EST