Infographic: Greg Workman

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average, making climate change’s polar effects more intense than anywhere else in the world. Some scientific projections show that the North Pole will have completely ice free summers by 2050. While a jarring image to imagine, climate change is transformative as its consequences reach much further than receding sea ice. The Arctic Institute’s Beyond the Melt project explores the hidden side of Arctic climate change. Delving into issues like black carbon, methane energy sources, and warm-weather diseases, our research team uncovers, analyses, and shares the unexpected challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing Arctic. The infographic and information below serves as a backgrounder for the next installment of the series: The Problems won’t go away – Persistent Organic Pollutants in the Arctic. To read more about Beyond the Melt, visit our projects page here.

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What are they?

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are toxic chemicals that adversely human health and the environment around the world. POPs are transported by wind, water, and food cycles making them transient across borders, continents, and ecosystems. Because they are resistant to environmental degradation, they persist for long periods of time in the environment and can accumulate and pass through the food chain. In 2001, 91 countries and the European Community agreed to reduce or eliminate the production of 12 key POPs in the Stockholm Convention. Some well known POPs include PCBs, DDT, and dioxins. While many developed countries have stopped or limited production, many still persist today, are unintentionally released, and are still being produced in developing countries.

Climate change is causing the release of toxic chemicals once trapped in the Arctic’s ice, snow, and soils. As the climate warms, POPs deposited in sinks like water and ice are expected to revolatilize into the atmosphere. Many pollutants with lower volatilities are being remobilized into the air in the Arctic as a result of sea-ice retreat and rising temperatures.

What are its sources in the Arctic?

POPs were first noticed in the Arctic during the 1950s when pilots noticed a haze in the North American Arctic that was traced to lower latitudes. The Arctic is a ‘sink’ for certain pollutants transported into the region from distant sources. The region is a focus for major global riverine, marine, and atmospheric pathways that carry contaminants over long distances.

Most POPs do not originate in the Arctic or in this century. Pesticides like DDt, Aldrin, Dieldrin, Chlordane, Endrin, Heptachlor, Mirex, and Toxaphene; industrial chemicals like PCBs and HCBs; and dioxides from municipal and medical waste, smelting, and other industrial processes have historically been the largest sources of persistent organic pollutants in the Arctic’s sinks and wildlife.

Where are they today?

Today, POPs accumulate in oceans and soils and food sources across the circumpolar north. Oceans and soils become secondary sources of POPs after they are no longer used. POPs are carried primarily by air from southerly sources to the Arctic and deposited into the soil and ocean, where they concentrations are amplified as a result of the cold trapping effect. Snow melt and sea-ice retreat render more open water surfaces across the Arctic Ocean, which is regarded as a major reservoir of POPs in the Arctic. POPs accumulate in the fatty tissues, milk and blood of living organisms, a process known as bioaccumulation. This is particularly true in the Arctic where animals have more fat to adapt to the colder climate. Seals, caribou, whales, wolves, polar bears, and plants like berries.

Why Does it Matter?

Climate change is making this old problem new again. Generally decreasing trends in air and biota for most POPs considered, levels of POPs in the blood of Arctic residents have also generally declined over the past 20 to 30 years – significant falls in DDT, its most common metabolite DDE, and most polychlorinated . Some POPs like PCBs in human blood remain higher in some Arctic regions than most general population, and HCB may be increasing. However, warming in the Arctic is causing the release of POPs that were once trapped in the region’s snow, ice, ocean, and soils. These once trapped POPs have been remobilized into the atmosphere over the past two decades as a result of climate change, increasing their exposure to current and future Arctic populations.

It has huge human health consequences. In people’s, reproductive, developmental, behavioral, neurologic, endocrine, and immunologic adverse health effects have been linked to POPs. People are mainly exposed to POPs through contaminated foods. In people and other mammals alike, POPs can be transferred through the placenta and breast milk to developing offspring. It should be noted, however, that despite this potential exposure, the known benefits of breastfeeding far outweigh the suspected risks. The Arctic’s indigenous peoples at particular risk of POPs exposure because their subsistence diets include large amounts of fish and wild foods that are high in fat and locally obtained. To them, fishing and hunting are not sport or recreation, but are part of a traditional, subsistence way of life, in which no useful part of the catch is wasted. In remote areas of Alaska and elsewhere, locally obtained subsistence food may be the only readily available option for nutrition.

It will reduce the effectiveness of the Stockholm Convention. Through computer modeling, it is projected that this will intensify in the future with contributed climate change. As noted in the UN Environment Programme and the Arctic Monitoring Assessment Program in 2011, “For some POPs, climate change-induced enhancement of emissions may reduce the expected effectiveness of the Stockholm Convention resulting in releases decreasing less rapidly than targeted.”

It’s a lesson in intergenerational responsibility. These remobilized POPs were generated by our grandparents. They are formed from pollutants that were banned decades ago and hold testament to a less environmentally friendly past. These POPs now coming in from the cold are affecting the health of today’s children and will affect their children. Much like climate change today, the choices of the last generation have a significant impact on the vitality, health, and wellbeing of communities today.