Previously in ClimateChangePost
By mid-century, little over 100 billion USD of buildings, structures and infrastructure in Russia’s permafrost regions will be negatively affected by permafrost changes, a recent assessment shows.
Evaporation cools the earth surface and hence soil moisture is a constraint on heat wave temperatures. Depletion of soil moisture may strongly amplify future heat waves, like the one of 2010.
A new strategy is urgently needed for boreal forests focused on the replacement of needle-leaved tree species by broad-leaved species. This would reduce fire risk and cool the boreal zone.
Under 2°C global warming the permafrost extent of the Northern Hemisphere will decrease by about 25%. Ground will settle owing to permafrost thaw, 4-15 cm on average, but up to several metres locally.
The ice regime of Russia’s rivers changes in a complicated way. In the short term the hazard of ice jamming becomes less predictable. In the long term the risk of ice jam floods will decrease.
Air pollution is a serious health concern in many parts of the world. Projections of air quality changes over Europe under climate change are highly uncertain, however.
The heat wave in 2010 was likely the hottest summer in the last 500 years in eastern Europe. It was both due to natural climate variability and anthropogenic climate change.
In July 2012 extreme rainfall caused a flash flood near the Black Sea town of Krymsk that killed over 170 people. The daily precipitation total exceeded all previous
In high-latitude regions of the Earth, temperatures have risen 0.6 °C per decade, twice as fast as the global average. The resulting thaw of frozen ground
Trans-Arctic navigation is likely to remain a summertime phenomenon. The Arctic marine environment is likely to be fully or partially ice-covered 6–8 months each year
The impact of climate change in recent decades on winter wheat yields has been studied for two wheat producing regions that are critical for the global market.
Although agricultural production increases in some regions, overall the mean yield decreases considerably due to more frequent droughts ...