Move over Greenhouse Gases...

After trawling through many academic journals, and trying not to get too distracted by the live COP21 debates, I have found a budding interest in Long range pollution in the Arctic region. Over the rest of my blogging experience I hope to explore this issue in greater detail.

I have several reasons for this focus:

Firstly, to provide a crevice for my blog to sit in, within the blogging community. I mean do you know any other blogs focusing on long range pollution?

Secondly, I feel like there are many threats to the Arctic which are brushed under the metaphorical carpet to make room for the almighty climate change. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not denying climate change isn't having (and will have) catastrophic effects on the polar regions (The Arctic in particular) but other issues such as pollutants cannot be ignored as a result.

Long range pollution can have equally as catastrophic implications to these regions and even contribute to global warming. A major consequence of long range pollutants is their integration into the Arctic food web (Kent Kwan et al., 2015). Pollutants often enter at the bottom of the food chain (through algae or terrestrial plants). This becomes a concern when pollutants are passed up to animals at the top of the food chain including Polar Bears, Orcas and even humans. These pollutants can act as a poison and contribute to the extinction of these already vulnerable species (International Polar Foundation, 2011). This is just a quick overview on one of the reasons long range pollutants should be more widely discussed. 

Now I promise there will be more to come but I am currently crying over a hydrological model for my undergraduate dissertations (a thing I expect many of you third years can relate to…) so in the mean time I will leave you with this video to keep you busy….