Vienna: Radioactive fallout from nuclear meltdowns and weapons testing is nestled in glaciers across the world, scientists said on Wednesday, warning of a potentially hazardous time bomb as rising temperatures melt the icy residue. For the first time, a team of scientists has studied the presence of nuclear fallout in ice surface sediments on glaciers across the Arctic, Iceland the Alps, Caucasus mountains, British Columbia and Antarctica.
It found manmade radioactive material at all 17 survey sites, often at concentrations over 10 times higher than levels elsewhere. “They are the highest levels you see in the environment outside nuclear exclusion zones,” said Caroline Clason, a lecturer in Physical Geography at the University of Plymouth.
When radioactive material is released into the atmosphere, it falls to earth as acid rain, some is absorbed by plants and soil.
But when it falls as snow and settles in the ice, it forms heavier sediment which collects in glaciers, concentrating the levels of N-residue. The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 released vast clouds of radioactive material including Caesium, causing contamination and acid rain across northern Europe for weeks afterwards.
