According to data from the Union of Concerned Scientists, Russia ranks fourth in the world for annual carbon emissions. But if overall emissions since the pre-Industrial period are taken into account, Russia [reportedly] moves to third […]
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Subject: Our occasional blog about climate science in/around Russia Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2021 From: Nicola Avery <nicolaavery@protonmail.com> We started a climate science blog a year or so ago, profiling scientists, mostly in Russia. We are developing the blog on a voluntary basis so only posting occasionally which is managed by Alina Bychkova at Nottingham Trent University, cc’d. We have […]
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The spike represents the first time temperatures have been over 3 C higher than the norm since measurements began in 1936 […]
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[Reportedly] more than 170,000 square kilometers have burned across Russia this year … the worst in a decade, and possibly ever … an area about the size of the U.S. state of Florida […]
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Russia plans to rely on … forests and swamps to absorb enough greenhouse gases to meet … climate goals while continuing to increase … carbon emissions […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Aug. 17, 2021) Russia’s 2021 wildfires are already the largest in the history of satellite observations, burning across 17.08 million hectares of land, the Greenpeace Russia environmental group has said. The new record beats the previous record set in 2012, when fires burned 17 million hectares of land, and comes with weeks left to go […]
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Putin … said the scale of natural disasters that have hit Russia this year is “absolutely unprecedented” as local officials ask for Moscow’s help to tackle fires and floods […]
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As September elections approach, COVID-19 takes a mounting toll and wildfires burn across huge swaths of the country …. The Kremlin crackdown on dissenters, civil society, and independent media continues […]
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Russia can expect to see intensifying wildfires, floods and other extreme weather events in the coming decades as the global climate crisis deepens a decade sooner than projected […]
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The Arctic is warming roughly three times faster than the planet as a whole, scientists warned …. Permafrost currently covers about 65% of Russian territory, but is melting fast […]
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“First positive sign of potential easing of tensions since last month’s summit” “Russia, … fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has signed up to the Paris climate agreement to limit emissions. Rapidly rising temperatures in Siberia … flooding and forest fires have made climate … increasingly important …. Putin, who four years ago blamed rising global temperatures on volcanoes and ‘cosmic […]
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… In 2020 the Laptev Sea stayed ice-free until November for the first time in documented history. The sea … plays a crucial role in generating ice coverage for the entire Arctic […]
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Most parties … participating in the upcoming Duma and regional legislative assembly elections are now including environmentalists in their list of candidates […]
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“For Moscow it is the last geopolitical battleground where it holds the advantage over Washington and Beijing” “… [N]ew and refurbished bases [are] meant to service the Kremlin’s ambitions in the resource-rich Arctic. … combined to form a new military district … under … the Northern Fleet, Russia’s foremost Arctic naval force[] … [with fleet] headquarters … on the Kola […]
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“Russia’s Sergei Lavrov claimed this week that ‘this is our land and our waters’ as NATO allies boost military activity” “… Russian and U.S. diplomats … [signal] rising tensions between [powers] racing to seize Arctic resources …. Arctic Council [participants] weren’t due to discuss security. But … Russia’s … Sergei Lavrov declared … the Arctic ‘is our land and our […]
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… [T]he rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council … intergovernmental forum … will pass from Iceland to Russia for a two-year term. … [as] the organization grapples with multiple challenges and Russia-West relations have hit another historic low […]
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MOSCOW. May 13 (Interfax) – The Russian government is planning to ban the harvesting of whales and dolphins for industrial and coastal fishing purposes, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said. “We are planning additional regulations, this time for individual and coastal fishing purposes. First of all, this will apply to whales and dolphins. The new bill will ban their harvesting. […]
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… 60-65% of Russia’s territory is covered in permafrost …. Russia’s Arctic [is] melting 2.5 times faster than the rest of the world […]
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“… Biden … has invited … Putin … and Xi Jinping … to … virtual climate talks. … [scheduled for] 22-23 April. … Some 40 invitations [were sent] to … leaders of … major countries, as well as [some at-risk, low-lying] countries …. If Putin or Xi attend, Biden will have to walk a fine line diplomatically, given claims of […]
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Economists have predicted that Russia stands to reap benefits from hotter temperatures, primarily through expanded navigation and exploration in the Arctic […]
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“Rising temperatures in the Arctic are a warning sign for the planet. The melting ice has an economic upside for Russia.” “Russia … fourth-biggest [greenhouse gas] emitter … [also faces Arctic] temperatures … warming more than twice [that of global rates] …. [With] more than a fifth of the planet’s forests, Russia has [had] two consecutive years of record-breaking wildfires […]
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… [T]he Krasnoyarsk City Court of Arbitration ruled that almost all of the sum, the largest legal award in Russian history, must go to the federal treasury […]
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Polar bears have been forced south by rising temperatures and melting ice cover, limiting their ability to hunt seals and walruses and increasing encounters with human settlements […]
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… [Our NASA Earth Observatory] team noticed a … message with a peculiar and beautiful image from Russia near 66 degrees north latitude. It turned into a scientific detective story and an unresolved case […]
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They agreed to cooperate further within the Arctic Council … [and] to establish contacts ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference […]
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(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – RM Staff – Jan. 28, 2021) As the effects of climate change grow more intense each year, attention is shifting to the inevitable geopolitical impacts of a warming planet. In 2020, Russia experienced its warmest winter on record, while the summer saw forest fires rip through Siberia like never before. At the same time, a […]
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… Russia’s two largest cities experienced the warmest autumn temperatures of their recorded histories in 2020 …. And it’s only the beginning, experts say […]
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“The Kolyma Highway in the Russian Far East once delivered tens of thousands of prisoners to the work camps of Stalin’s gulag. The ruins of that cruel era are still visible today.” “… [P]risoners, hacking … through insect-infested summer swamps and winter ice fields, brought the road … [which] then brought yet more prisoners … a torrent of slave labor […]
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“… The extent of ice-covered ocean at the North Pole and extending further south to Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia reached its summertime low of 1.4 million square miles … last week before starting to grow again. Arctic sea ice reaches its low point in September and its high in March after the winter. This year’s melt is second only […]
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“As temperatures in the Russian Arctic rapidly increase and permafrost continues to melt, Russian land feasible for wheat production is beginning to grow. … While wheat makes up only 2.3% of Russia’s total exports, this small percentage constitutes a major portion of the global wheat export market. … Relying on wheat production in these newly farmable lands, however, will not […]
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“… Known to locals as the ‘gateway to the underworld,’ Batagay is … [earth’s] largest thaw slump …. Once just a gully … the scar has expanded … as … permafrost thaws and meltwater carries off … sediment. Now more than 900 meters wide, it epitomizes the vulnerability of permafrost in the Arctic …. Outbursts of pent-up methane gas in […]
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“Thawing permafrost in the rapidly warming region leaves Moscow’s ambitious Arctic expansion proposals literally on shaky ground.” “… [S]urg[ing] … climate change in interior Russia – more than three times the global average – is throwing new risks in the way of … Putin’s Far North agenda, among his top domestic initiatives. A key danger is … more infrastructure atop […]
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Rapidly melting Arctic permafrost poses the greatest threat to major Russian energy producers’ infrastructure and financial indicators, according to a new Morgan Stanley report […]
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“… Putin has signed a ‘July Decree’ … outlin[ing] … national development goals up to 2030 …. risk[ing] … [failure to] fulfill[] … [his] previous economic platform due to the … COVID-19[] crisis. … [with] deadlines for [the] National Projects spending spree … being pushed from 2024 to 2030. [The new platform] outline[s] five development goals: 1) maintaining the population, […]
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.. The rapid pace of warming has stunned climate scientists, despite years of gradually rising temperatures. […]
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“Smoke from the blazes is now reaching the West Coast of the United States.” “… [S]moke from the fires … spans over 1,000 miles … causing hazy skies [in] the northwestern United States …. Permafrost is rich in organic material that froze before it could completely decompose. Melting permafrost releases greenhouse gases on top of the pollution released by the […]
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“Temperatures soared 10 degrees Celsius above average across much of permafrost-laden Siberia last month …. Earth’s average surface temperature for July 2019-June 2020 was 1.3C above pre-industrial levels …. In the Arctic … an hourly temperature record for June … was set on the 21st near Verkhoyansk in northeastern Russia …. [P]reviously registered Arctic hourly highs in 1969 and 1973 […]
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Russia broke all recorded heat records in the first six months of the year, and the head of the country’s weather service has warned of “dangerous weather events” to come in July […]
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… It’s hard to judge how successful this new environmental activism can be in a country so dependent on natural resources exports, but scientists’ concerns are slowly reaching Russia’s general public […]
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“The Russian Arctic set record temperatures in June that sparked abnormal tundra fires … Russia’s weather service [director] said … blaming climate change for … ‘fantastical’ anomalies. Russia’s northern territories, including parts of Yakutia region which borders the Arctic ocean, have faced a heat wave … with some districts declaring a state of emergency. … He noted one record in […]
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Russia’s Arctic has been hit by three separate environmental disasters linked to mining giant Norilsk Nickel in the span of a month […]
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“Wild anomalies such as the 38C recorded in northern Russia this week underline climate change threat.” “… [N]orthern Russia has produced the highest temperature ever recorded inside the Arctic Circle …. [R]esidents of Verkhoyansk, north-east of Siberia in … Yakutia … have … been sunbathing in a town that at other times of the year shares the record as the […]
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Russia recorded an all-time heat record above the Arctic Circle on Saturday as Siberia continues to swelter under a historic heatwave […]
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“The planet just had its warmest May, continuing a streak from 2014.” “… Siberia … has seen persistently extreme temperatures since the winter … [leading] to a damaging Arctic oil spill, spark[ing] early outbreaks of large wildfires and help[ing] vault global temperatures to new milestones. … Permafrost thawing across Siberia … has caused widespread problems such as buckled roads, collapsed […]
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(Oilprice.com – Alex Kimani – June 11, 2020) Five days ago, Russia suffered its worst oil spill in modern history after a fuel storage tank owned by Russian nickel and palladium mining company, Nornickel, collapsed and spilled 21,000 tonnes (about 158,000 barrels) of diesel into the nearby Ambarnaya river outside the Siberian city of Norilsk. The accident–which has drawn comparisons […]
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“Infrastructure built on permafrost needs to be better monitored, experts and officials say.” “… [O]ne of the largest ever oil spills in the Russian Arctic may have been caused in part by permafrost thaw, according to the [polluting] company …. Experts … long warned that … [without] precautionary steps … such thaw could cause[] billions of dollars in damage to […]
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Around a third of Russians are unhappy with the state of the environment where they live, according to a survey conducted by state-run pollster VTsIOM […]
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“Russia has … contain[ed] a massive diesel spill into [an Arctic] river … the emergencies ministry [stated] … Environmentalists said the oil spill, which took place [a week earlier] … was the worst such accident ever in the Arctic region. … [A] diesel reservoir collapsed at a power station outside the northern Siberian city of Norilsk[ owned by a subsidiary […]
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“… Putin ordered a state of emergency … in the Taymyr region near the Arctic Ocean, after 20,000 tons (150,000 barrels) of diesel fuel spilled from a Russian power plant into … soil and a nearby river. The accident occurred in the Siberian city … Norilsk … [T]he plant’s fuel reservoir collapsed into thawing permafrost, releasing its contents. Diesel is […]
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