, of which there are 1 million in total worldwide every year.
Scientists don’t know how much radon is actually emanating from areas with melting permafrost today, says Nicholas Hasson, a geoscientist and PhD student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks: “I would call this a blank spot.” He notes that, in real life, permafrost layers are complex and irregular, and agrees with Glover that field measurements are essential to validate the model.
It is important to avoid panicking people without solid data and solutions on hand, says Aaron Goodarzi, a radiobiologist at the University of Calgary in Canada. The good news is that there areof lowering levels of radon inside a house once the homeowner knows it is there. Goodarzi points, for example, to a technique called sub slab depressurization, in which a sealed pipe is inserted below the house and connected to a fan.