Steve MacLellan

In its latest annual Arctic Report Card, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reveals that a long-feared climate “tipping point” may have been breached, such that “the Arctic itself may now be contributing to climate change,” writes Vox. The report warns that “thawing permafrost throughout the Arctic could be releasing an estimated 300 to 600 million tons of net carbon per year to the atmosphere.”

And climate-altering CO2 and methane are “not all that’s lurking in the permafrost,” Vox notes. A video accompanying the news story offers chilling insight into the perils that await, especially for the 35 million people who currently call the Arctic home. Citing an outbreak of anthrax in Siberia in 2016, which infected 90 and killed a 12-year-old boy, the online news outlet points to the possibility that other deadly diseases like Spanish flu, smallpox, and bubonic plague may waken from hibernation as the permafrost melts. (Researchers now believe the source of the Siberian anthrax outbreak was a long-dead reindeer whose frozen carcass thawed and released spores into the open air.)