They focused on the water color, acidity, and the effect on the fishes, but they are not putting enough stress in the elephants in the room, the 2.4+ºC increase of average temperature northern regions over very few years (not since preindustrial times) and the massive permafrost thawing that is happening there.
Yes, it is causing this. And many more things in those regions and all the world, for more time than a single framed picture.
What nobody ever talks about is that some of the old organic stuff (roots, leaves) in the thawing permafrost did not grow there in recent times because that stuff won't grow in permafrost. This means the thawing of the permafrost is not new and that the area used to have more stuff growing there than it does now. We should expect a greening of parts of Alaska if the warming continues and growth resumes.
> Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that the ultimate cause is climate change.
quelle surprise
> Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C hotter by 2100, a greater increase than projected for any other national park.
Holy shit. 10°C is currently the difference between NY and DC, or Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico, or Montana and Southern California...
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Permafrost melts mean more habitable land for humans! This is wonderful for humanity. Russian and Canada will be way more populated in the future.
Before reading, iron dissolving due to higher reactivity (including bacterial action) because temperatures are higher
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After reading:
> "Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that the ultimate cause is climate change. Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C hotter by 2100, a greater increase than projected for any other national park. The heat may already have begun to thaw 40 percent of the park's permafrost"
> "Some researchers think acid from minerals is leaching iron out of bedrock that has been exposed to water for the first time in millennia. Others think bacteria are mobilizing iron from the soil in thawing wetlands."
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Other thoughts: iron bearing silicates often contain gold. New gold rush?
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Things like this have surely happened before but not while there were so many people around
Extinctions have happened before too, but that doesn't make them good