Mongolia has 156 million hectares of grasslands, with approximately two-thirds as pasture and 1.7 million hectares for agriculture. Over half of Mongolia’s grasslands are classified as degraded, partly due to overgrazing. They wish to improve monitoring of vegetation health. With global desertification increasing alongside global temperature rise, researchers at the Botanic Garden and Research Institute…
Category: climate change
Can Steppe trees grow fast enough to suit international climate agreements?
Researchers from Voronezh reviewed the planned timeframes for carbon absorption / emissions reduction in the Paris climate agreement, which has separate credits for projects lasting 5, 10 and 15 years with some extensions. A common method is to use reforestation together with forestry management to help absorb carbon. They noted that most Reducing Emissions from…
Implementing green finance in Russia
A new study suggests implementing a regulatory framework and strategy to encourage the development of green financing in Russia. The researchers suggest that green financing initiatives can help implement costly environmental projects, using mechanisms to support the national ‘Ecology’ project. Using data from Rosstat, they found that sustainable finance is approximately $2 billion, and 0.18%…
What is in defrosted Russian Arctic ice?
Carbon deposits in thawing permafrost include widely reported methane gases released as bubbles and present in craters across Siberia. Scientists wanted to find out more about the greenhouse emissions and what was in the defrosted ground ice including dissolved organic matter (DOM) and particulate organic matter (POM). They studied four locations across the Russian arctic…
Soviet and Russian perspectives on geoengineering and climate management
With geoengineering being a hot topic in climate change discussions, Jonathan Oldfield and Marianna Poborezhskaya reviewed the history and current thinking from both Soviet and Russian perspectives. During Soviet history, discussions mirrored other countries about human influence on climate change such as stratospheric sulfur aerosols to mitigate the effect. Even within the 1950s Soviet scientists…
Is climate change affecting buffalo treehoppers?
There were 213 records between 2017 and 2023. Originating from North America, they appeared in Europe in 20th century including Russia in the second half of the century. They are usually found in summer and early autumn. Russian researchers wanted to review the impact of climate change on their species distribution across Russian wood and…
Seasonal methane across northen Siberian waters
Siberian scientists recently analysed how much methane was stored in the Lena River, Tiksi Bay and .Lake Golzovoye because methane levels in water are not as well known. Between 2001-17 the atmospheric methane increased to 1932 ppb, recorded at Tiksi Hydrometeorological Observatory. They wanted to investigate the relationship between warmer water temperatures and increased methane…
Inspecting climate, chlorine and carcinogens in southern Baikal’s water
248,000 water samples between 2011 and 2022 were recently investigated by researchers at the East-Siberian Institute of Medical and Ecological Research, in Angarsk. Lake Baikal is the world’s largest freshwater lake. It is a UNESCO protected site, also protected in Russian national legislation. Chemical engineering and agro-industrial sites in the region also access the water,…
Climate concerns of Russian businesses
In October 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an updated version of a climate doctrine for Russia, 2023 version (RU), 2009 version (EN), which will be reviewed as part of development of a future state policy.1 In November, a group of researchers from four Russian universities published their analysis of the mission statements of the…
Cuckoo clocks ahead of time in Tatarstan
Climate change continues to affects birds and plants, changing resource availability. This is causing problems for both the common and oriental cuckoos. Ornithologists in Kazan, Tatarstan completed research over a 1200km2 area between 1988 – 2023. The sub-taiga area includes forests, farms, lakes, rivers and other human settlements. They recorded arrival times, visual and audio…
Russian Climate Research 