A torrent of infectious diseases is erupting from melting ice. We shouldn't freak out just yet [View all]

A torrent of infectious diseases is erupting from melting ice. We shouldn't freak out just yet
As the world heats up, vast numbers of microbes frozen in vast amounts of ice are set to thaw. We must prepare

By Carlyn Zwarenstein
Published April 24, 2025 5:15AM (EDT)


(Salon) You may feel that we all have enough to worry about, and thus have no need for the spectre of zombie-like reanimated bacteria or viruses in thawing permafrost that set off a story straight out of a sci-fi flick. Unfortunately, it's a looming reality thanks to climate change.

Luckily, scientists tell us that while it's high time we thought carefully about how we are going to manage the vast numbers of microbes being released along with equally vast quantities of melting ice and thawing permafrost as a result of global heating, there is no need to panic nor to sensationalize the issue.

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"The rate at which we lost ice during these 23 years is approximately the amount of water contained in four Olympic pools, per second. So that's a lot of microbes that will disperse around the ecosystems, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems," said Yarzábal, who published a 2021 review with two colleagues exploring existing literature regarding the consequences of such a large store of microbes being steadily released back into the environment. And that's just glaciers. There are still the thawing permafrost and melting ice sheets to take into account. All of these, however unpolluted, contain their own microbial worlds. Worlds with between ten and 100 million microbes per milliliter of ice, depending on the kind of ice, Yarzábal said.

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Already we've had a warning of what could happen: in 2016, Siberia had an extremely hot summer. The permafrost melted, exposing in the process the frozen carcasses of reindeer who had died an estimated 150 years before thanks to an epidemic of anthrax. While the animals were dead, some of the bacteria in them had remained alive, and when curious living reindeer came into contact with the remains of their frozen ancestors, they became infected with the spore-forming bacteria, Bacillus anthracis. As Yarzábal told Salon, almost 2,500 animals died and many hundreds of people (who, in this area, are in close contact with reindeer, relying on them as a source of protein for food and commerce) became infected, with at least one small human child dying as a result. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/04/24/a-torrent-of-infectious-diseases-is-erupting-from-melting-ice-we-shouldnt-freak-out-just-yet/