In one troubling case, dozens of people were sickened − and thousands of reindeer were killed − when anthrax spores emerged from the thawing permafrost in an Arctic region of Siberia.
The virus, a Pandoravirus, had been lying dormant in Russia's permafrost. The study sheds light on the dangers of climate change awakening prehistoric diseases from permafrost.
Nearly 23 million acres burned from 1982 to 2020. But almost half of that occurred in 2019 and 2020, and the region may be near a threshold beyond which extreme fires become more common.
Rapid warming of the Arctic has led to the extreme wildfire seasons experienced in Siberia in recent years, scientists said Thursday, and such severe fires are likely to continue.
