Climate risk planning for floods and droughts with a hint of Noah and Joseph

A team of researchers investigated the impact on health from floods and droughts between 2010 – 2020. Flooding can be caused by heavy rainfall, storm surges, tsunamis, snow and ice melt or damage to water infrastructure. Health impacts include injuries from flooding including collapsed buildings, floating objects, toxic water with increased pathogens. Regular flooding can…

Understanding rain, snow and cyclones across the Barents Sea

[Ed. Alexander Kislov and his team are some of Russia’s leading climate scientists] Interest in the effect of warming temperatures in the Arctic continues to grow, with researchers studying a range of impacts such as reduced sea ice, animal migration, flora changes and overall adaptation. However building an overall picture takes multiple projects and multiple…

Salt on the move in the permafrost

Researchers at Skoltech wanted to understand more about the effect of pressure and temperature on salt distribution in permafrost that contains hydrates and permafrost that doesn’t. Existing research does not model salt diffusion and transportation in permafrost thawing. They simulated experiments reproducing the degrading permafrost in laboratory conditions by changing the temperature and pressure whilst…

Siberian trees are telling the humans it’s too hot !

Increases in sea ice melt, permafrost melt and wildfires are observed whilst Siberian temperatures continue to escalate beyond previous records, for example 38°C last year inside the Arctic Circle. To understand the changes, researchers looked at proxy records. Historically in the Siberian Arctic they have mostly included low-resolution pollen records and laminated lake sediments. They…

Mounds of mires

Researchers from Tuvan and Tomsk universities wanted to understand the impact of climate change on palsa mires which are frozen mounds of peat bogs found in the highlands of southern Siberia. They are caused by permafrost and can be several metres high and up to several hundred km2 in area. When reading existing research they…

1.5ºC annual average warming predicted in Russia over next 30 years

Vladimir Semyonov is Deputy Director of the Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Russian News Agency TASS reported from a recent press conference summarising the current climate atmospheric position based on the Institute’s science. The Institute is an IPCC contributor and collaborator: According to him, the warming will be…

Uncovering stratospheric oxygen and nitrogen in Russian skies

Variability in total contents based on long term stratospheric trends are measured by researchers at the A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics. They are measuring levels of O3 and NO2 at the Kislovodsk High-Altitude Scientific Station (KHASS) and Zvenigorod Scientific Station (ZSS). This includes direct and zenith scattered UV solar radiation during mornings and evening…

Permafrost and cryogenic monitoring in the western Russian Arctic.

Permafrost is currently analysed by reviewing temperatures at different layers compared with air and ground surface temperatures, depth of freezing and thawing, as well as overall coverage including snow and vegetation. Mean annual air temperature (MAAT) and mean annual ground temperatures (MAGT) are a widely used source of analysis with the practical measurements being completed…