Because of Climate Change, Russia Warming Almost Twice as Fast as the Rest of the World, Moscow Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 11 – The Russian government’s hydrometeorology service says that Russia is currently warming twice as fast as any other land territory on earth and that in its northern regions, it is warming at a rate even faster than that. The consequences of this over the next decades will be dramatic and both positive and negative.

            Over the past decade, it reports, Russia has warmed by 0.51 degrees centegrade, while the world figure is only 0.295. In Russia’s Arctic zone, that figure has been even greater -- 0.71 degrees. By 2100, the average temperatures in Russia will likely increase by three to nine degrees centegrade (gorod-812.ru/v-rossii-tepleet-v-dva-raza-bystree/).

            These increases will mean that precipitation in Russia will increase from eight to 22 percent and that the permafrost layer may very well disappear entirely. All Russian seas, with the exception of the Caspian, will continue to rise  at an average rate of two to four millimeters a year. The Caspian, however will continue to decline because of an increase in sediments.

            According to the Russian experts, the economic consequences of these changes will be large but are difficult to predict because of the impossibility of isolating climate change from other factors. But it is already obvious that they will change the length of the shipping season in the Arctic and the best areas for agriculture, which will move north.

            They will have a negative impact on tourism in the Caucasus because of high temperatures, but they will allow Russians in the north to swim for longer periods each year. In St. Petersburg, for example, the swimming season is predicted to increase by 15 to 20 days by 2050 – and even more after that time.