Permafrost-climatic monitoring of Russia: Analysis of field data and forecast

Abstract

The author surveys work currently under way in the Russian Federation to assess the interrelationships between climate and permafrost and its use as a basis for forecasting change in permafrost conditions. Long-term trends in air temperature, precipitation, and snow depth provide the basic information for efforts to reconstruct past climates and for the formulation of numerical atmospheric radiation-circulation models, utilized in climate forecasting. Forecast and observed trends in climate are compared with data from permafrost stations that indicate trends in ground temperature and permafrost conditions. Such comparisons provide the basis for forecasts of anticipated change in Russian permafrost by the years 2020 and 2050.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to express his appreciation to V. A. Dubrovin, who made possible the operation of the Marre-Sale and Parisento permafrost stations in northern West Siberia. Special recognition is due to N. B. Kakunov, who kindly supplied primary data on thermal monitoring of the ground in northeastern European Russia for systematization and analysis. The observational data for ground temperature in test holes at the Polar Tundra Zonal Station, on the basis of which Table 5 was prepared, as well as data for the other geocryologic monitoring stations in the Vorkuta region, were supplied to the author by N. V. Kakunov.