Sustainable soil management (SSM) initiatives review organic matter in soil and carbon sequestration to understand how best to mitigate carbon and methane emissions, improving mitigation of climate change. In Russia, the government established a ‘Carbon Polygons’ project assessing and monitoring carbon in different ecosystems and biomes, especially boreal forest regions. The researchers wanted to assess… Read More Exploring the ‘carbon polygon’ of Ladoga
Alongside the Arctic Ocean, the Barents, White, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi seas are marine ecosystems including seabeds, ocean floor and subsoils. Increases in drilling of the continental shelf increases environmental impact. Yakovleva noted the most common issues are emissions, oil / oil product spills, pollution, waste (including metals, radioactive, plastic etc ), and… Read More A regulatory shhh across Arctic coastal ecosystems?
Researchers looked at marine biodiversity in Arctic waters near Svalbard, in particular the marine ecosystems in the Barents Sea and the Fram Strait region. In the lower benthic layers of the waters, there are greater biodiversity of e.g. zooplankton and fish species. There is a mix of warmer and saltier Atlantic water and colder Arctic… Read More What is lurking in Svalbard’s waters?
Alina Bychkova has nearly completed her PhD thesis ‘Understanding climate change narratives in Central Asia: science, politics and media discussions’ at Nottingham Trent University. She co-published ‘Kazakhstan’s climate change policy: reflecting national strength, green economy aspirations and international agenda’, Post-Communist Economies,34:7,894-915,DOI: 10.1080/14631377.2021.1943916 What is your PHD and how is it going? My PhD is in… Read More Understanding climate politics in Central Asia – interview with Alina Bychkova
In 2020, scientists from across 14 branches of the Russian Academy of Sciences began the expedition in Taymyr. They are assessing the state of Arctic ecosystems in the area. Early results of impacts on Arctic waters, via TASS and the Institute of Biophysics (EN) at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SB-RAS);… Read More Great Norilsk Expedition results in 2023
Lake Chany in Western Siberia has historically been a shallow lake, approximately 2 metres deep and a 2.2 thousand km2 area. It is saline which is similar to other lakes in the region due to intensive evaporation after rain and run off. This theoretically increases the affect of climate change in water levels and surrounding… Read More Digging deeper and deeper into the Lake Chany basin
Environmental discussions in Russia often focus on atmospheric pollution, waste and drinking water. They are starting to include sustainability and energy consumption. Russia is fourth in the world for primary energy consumption, electricity production and fossil fuel extraction. Across Russia’s cold climates, central heating is widely available in cities, with cheap electricity. There is very… Read More Can Russians promote energy saving behaviour without adversely affecting economic development of their own country? A look at Chelyabinsk.
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… Read More Salt on the move in the permafrost
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… Read More Mounds of mires
The Aral Sea repeatedly appeared and disappeared over the last century but has now steadily decreased as the dust increased, resulting in desertification. There is still water in the north of the Aral Sea but the ‘desert’ lakebed in the middle has more dust and sandstorms than anywhere else in the world. Researchers used two… Read More Dust detectors in the Aral Sea basin
More than bears 