Global Warming and Just One Of Its Many Ramifications

Anthrax outbreak in Russia is thought to be the result of thawing permafrost.

Russia is fighting a mysterious anthrax outbreak in a remote corner of Siberia. Dozens of people have been hospitalized; one child has died. The government has airlifted some families out as more than 2,000 reindeer have been infected. Officials don’t know exactly how the outbreak started, but the current hypothesis is almost unbelievable: A heatwave has thawed the frozen soil there and with it, a reindeer carcass that became infected with anthrax decades ago.

Some scientists think this incident could be an example of what climate change may increasingly surface in the tundra. The place where the outbreak is occurring is called the Yamal Peninsula. It lies high above the Arctic Circle at the top of the world. It’s so cold there, the soil — called permafrost — is frozen solid, more than 1,000 feet deep in some places, or about the height of the Empire State Building.

“The soil in the Yamal Pennisula is like a giant freezer,” says Jean-Michel Claverie at the National Center for Scientific Research in France…