hawgrider
05-09-2017, 08:34 AM
In July of 2016 the Russian government deployed bio-warfare teams to the Arctic after reports that some 1,200 reindeer and 40 people had been infected with a rapidly spreading virus. The story received little attention, but it showed without a shadow of a doubt that something dangerous is lurking below the Arctic’s permafrost. As it turns out, the contagion was identified as a strain of Bacillus Anthracis, more commonly known as Anthrax, and was believed to have been released into the wildlife and human population after warmer temperatures melted the ice.
Scientists and government officials now say that the Arctic Anthrax outbreak is a warning to the human population, and that continued warming of the climate could lead to deadlier, rapidly spreading viruses that have long been believed to be extinct.
The fear is that this will not be an isolated case.
As the Earth warms, more permafrost will melt. Under normal circumstances, superficial permafrost layers about 50cm deep melt every summer. But now global warming is gradually exposing older permafrost layers.
Frozen permafrost soil is the perfect place for bacteria to remain alive for very long periods of time, perhaps as long as a million years. That means melting ice could potentially open a Pandora’s box of diseases.
The temperature in the Arctic Circle is rising quickly, about three times faster than in the rest of the world. As the ice and permafrost melt, other infectious agents may be released.
“Permafrost is a very good preserver of microbes and viruses, because it is cold, there is no oxygen, and it is dark,” says evolutionary biologist Jean-Michel Claverie at Aix-Marseille University in France. “Pathogenic viruses that can infect humans or animals might be preserved in old permafrost layers, including some that have caused global epidemics in the past.”
…
People and animals have been buried in permafrost for centuries, so it is conceivable that other infectious agents could be unleashed. For instance, scientists have discovered intact 1918 Spanish flu virus in corpses buried in mass graves in Alaska’s tundra. Smallpox and the bubonic plague are also likely buried in Siberia.
In a 2011 study, Boris Revich and Marina Podolnaya wrote: “As a consequence of permafrost melting, the vectors of deadly infections of the 18th and 19th Centuries may come back, especially near the cemeteries where the victims of these infections were buried.”
Source: BBC
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/scientists-warn-deadly-ancient-pathogens-melting-out-of-ice-in-the-arctic-could-wipe-out-human-population_05052017
Scientists and government officials now say that the Arctic Anthrax outbreak is a warning to the human population, and that continued warming of the climate could lead to deadlier, rapidly spreading viruses that have long been believed to be extinct.
The fear is that this will not be an isolated case.
As the Earth warms, more permafrost will melt. Under normal circumstances, superficial permafrost layers about 50cm deep melt every summer. But now global warming is gradually exposing older permafrost layers.
Frozen permafrost soil is the perfect place for bacteria to remain alive for very long periods of time, perhaps as long as a million years. That means melting ice could potentially open a Pandora’s box of diseases.
The temperature in the Arctic Circle is rising quickly, about three times faster than in the rest of the world. As the ice and permafrost melt, other infectious agents may be released.
“Permafrost is a very good preserver of microbes and viruses, because it is cold, there is no oxygen, and it is dark,” says evolutionary biologist Jean-Michel Claverie at Aix-Marseille University in France. “Pathogenic viruses that can infect humans or animals might be preserved in old permafrost layers, including some that have caused global epidemics in the past.”
…
People and animals have been buried in permafrost for centuries, so it is conceivable that other infectious agents could be unleashed. For instance, scientists have discovered intact 1918 Spanish flu virus in corpses buried in mass graves in Alaska’s tundra. Smallpox and the bubonic plague are also likely buried in Siberia.
In a 2011 study, Boris Revich and Marina Podolnaya wrote: “As a consequence of permafrost melting, the vectors of deadly infections of the 18th and 19th Centuries may come back, especially near the cemeteries where the victims of these infections were buried.”
Source: BBC
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/scientists-warn-deadly-ancient-pathogens-melting-out-of-ice-in-the-arctic-could-wipe-out-human-population_05052017