Accumulation of organic material does not only affect carbon, there are also many other elements that are sequestered together with the carbon in both terrestrial soils and lake sediments. Among these are several pollutants, e.g., mercury. As long as the carbon pools remain stable, the mercury remain relatively immobile. However, as soon as the carbon pools become unstable, the mercury can be mobilised.
One such destabilisation mechanism is permafrost thaw. Based on data from sub-arctic Sweden and Greenland I will talk about how the interaction between carbon, mercury and permafrost have changed over time.
Photo: Johan Rydberg in the field. Source: Private