tramper trek through Kobuk Valley National Park in Alaska during the summer of 2017 would have revel a panorama that puts postcards andBob Rosspaintings to shame : a seemingly endless landscape of hatful , pine trees , and crystal - clear streams .

Those who visit the park a class later , in August 2018 , had quite a different experience . The mountains and pine tree tree diagram were still there , but the clear-cut streams , specifically those connected to the Akillik River , were colour a shocking rusty orange .

Far from ahappy lilliputian accident , this kind of phenomenon has been happening more and more often in late years . According to anew studyin the journalNature Communications Earth & Environment , it ’s likely because clime change inthe Arcticis freeing a server of toxic minerals from the frozen soil .

An aerial view of the rust-colored Kutuk River in Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska. Thawing permafrost is exposing minerals to weathering, increasing the acidity of the water, which releases metals like iron, zinc and copper.

Researchers from theUniversity of California - Davis , the National Park Service , and other psychiatric hospital sampled water from 75 streams in the land ’s northerly one-half . They discover increase concentrations of smoothing iron , quicksilver , and other weighed down metals .

These essence originated frompermafrost , frozen solid ground that , thanks to Alaska ’s fabulously cold mood , has persist undisturbed for millennia . But now , if the global middling temperature increases by 3 ° snow , up to 85 percent of the world ’s upper permafrost layers couldthawby the remnant of the 100 . Contamination of Alaska ’s frail ecosystem may decline as time pass away .

Stuck on the frontlines of this development are the State Department ’s belovednational parksand the large number ofanimals , plants , and people that rely on them . The study report that Kobuk Valley National Park has already witnessed a “ considerable decrease ” in stream biodiversity as a result of the orange onslaught , with the inflow of heavy metals affecting the population of Pisces species like Dolly Varden , chum salmon , and Arctic grayling — not to mention the smaller plants and animals on which they run , as well as their rude predators .

An aerial view of the Kutuk River in Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic National Park, where a portion of the water is rust-stained

Drinking water presents another suit for worry . Many mass on the Alaskan frontier live in distant community and get their water from nature rather than supermarkets .   While arsenic and lead concentrations in the Akillik River do not yet exceed World Health Organization or Environmental Protection Agency criteria , concentrations of atomic number 48 , atomic number 28 , and manganese do .

In most cases , these levels do n’t do anything except slightly alter the water ’s taste . However , in some rural areas , include the coastal settlement of Kivalina , located near Cape Krusenstern National Monument on the Wulik River , contamination has develop so bad that ration of bottled H2O had to be flown in from the south . Asglobal warmingand permafrost thaw continue , similar meter might also need to be taken for other communities .

An angler holds a freshly caught Arctic grayling fish in Gates of the Arctic National Park