Residents of a remote town in Norway that is in one of the fastest-warming places in the world have been told they must no longer drink tap water due to heavy metal contamination that scientists have linked to the thawing permafrost.

Longyearbyen, in the archipelago of Svalbard, gets its main drinking water supply from a 1.5 mile-long (2.5km) dammed lake called Isdammen, or “ice pond”. Higher temperatures as a result of the climate crisis have thawed permafrost, leading to newly exposed bedrock leaching metals into the pond.

There's this pile of money they have there; Idk, where was it from again?

Heavy metal contamination of the water supply is likely to be linked to two factors, researchers say: the thawing of permafrost – rock-hard ground that remains frozen all year apart from a so-called “active layer” that thaws in summer – and the geology of the former mining settlement.

OK, so the heavy metals were put there by humans

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