Recent studies of water and soil have shown that the oil pollution level at the Arctic Ambarnaya River, located near the thermal power plant in Norilsk where a massive fuel spill occurred in late May, have not exceed the maximum permissible values, said local authorities in russian Krasnoyarsk region.
“Over 600 water and soil samples were studied. According to the latest data, oil pollution at the mouth of the Ambarnaya River does not exceed threshold limit value. Nevertheless, the work has not been stopped,” Yuri Lapshin, the head of the Krasnoyarsk regional government, said during a session in the local parliament on Thursday, adding that now “the key phase in the aftermath of the accident ends.”
Earlier in June, scientists linked what happened in the Russian Arctic with global warming.
Much of Siberia had high temperatures this year that were beyond unseasonably warm. From January through May, the average temperature in north-central Siberia has been about 8 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) above average, according to the climate science non-profit Berkeley Earth.
Siberia is in the Guinness Book of World Records for its extreme temperatures. It’s a place where the thermometer has swung 106 degrees Celsius (190 degrees Fahrenheit), from a low of minus 68 degrees Celsius (minus 90 Fahrenheit) to now 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 Fahrenheit).
The increasing temperatures in Siberia have been linked to prolonged wildfires that grow more severe every year, and the thawing of the permafrost is a huge problem because buildings and pipelines are built on them. Thawing permafrost also releases more heat-trapping gas and dries out the soil, which increases wildfires, said Vladimir Romanovsky, who studies permafrost at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The warming climate in Siberia will cause permafrost to melt, which may cause the destruction of cities in this region, writes the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, citing climatologist Johan Kuylenstierna.
According to climatologists, such hot weather in Siberia is a link in the overall chain and calls for tracking the overall trend. If permafrost begins to melt faster, it will hit the infrastructure hard. The soil will become unstable and it will affect cities and dams (Siberia), he said. Recall earlier, BNN Bloomberg reported that a fuel leak due to damage to a reservoir in Norilsk was caused by melting permafrost in the Arctic region.
It was also claimed that the infrastructure of the region is collapsing in this regard, and the accident is likely to damage permafrost in the region in the long term.