The content of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) in the soil is high many places in Eastern Europe and North America due to pollutions in earlier periods. Today, there is a ban on PCB in both Europe and North-America.
But, when trees and dead grass and leaves catches fire, it releases PCB to the atmosphere and the winds bring the toxic to the Arctic. Worst is the situation over the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.
Svalbard is nearby as far away from the civilization as it is possible to get, but despite the distance, the Polar bears living at and around Svalbard carry higher levels of PCBs than any other wild animal on the planet. There are thosands of Polar bears living between Norwegian Svalbard and the Russian Arctic islands of Franz Josefs land and Novaya Zemlya.
PCB and other harmful pollution coming to the Arctic are jeopardizing the survival of Polar bears.
Also, recent estimates says two-thirds of the world’s 20 to 25,000 polar bears will be lost during the next 50 years because of climate change.
Read also: Russia: Polar bears must be protected
The research project studying the connection between forest fires and PCB concentrations over Svalbard has been carried out at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, reports ScienceDaily.
In particular, the researchers have seen the connection between two huge fire periods in North America and in Russia in 2004 and 2006 and the levels in the far-away Arctic area. About 5.8 million hectares of coniferous forest burned down. Several weeks later, record-high values of PCB were found in the atmosphere above Svalbard, ScienceDaily report.
PCB is stored in the fatty parts of the organism and accumulates in the food chain. Polar bears at Svalbard have the highest levels of PCB found in Arctic animals, but also humans living in the Arctic have higher levels of PCB than humans living other places.
