Climatic and geographic patterns of river runoff formation in Northern Eurasia

Siberian rivers are of global importance as they impact on the freshwater budget of the Arctic Ocean, which affects the Thermo-Haline circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean. Siberian rivers, in particular the tributaries to the larger rivers, are under-represented in the international river-regime databases. The runoff of three Russian rivers in the Central Siberian taiga (Kureyka, Karabula and Erba) is modelled to analyse the relative influence of climate. In addition three rivers (Rhine, Maas and Odra) in Western Europe are similarly assessed as a control. The results show that the role of precipitation and autocorrelation as factors in the formation of river runoff is stronger under oceanic climate conditions, increasing from the central regions of Northern Eurasia towards the Arctic Ocean in the North and the Atlantic in the West. At the same time the influence of summer temperatures is weakened. The formation of Northern Eurasian river runoff appears to be influenced by periodically thawing top horizons of permafrost soil. Time served as an indicator for land use change after inclusion of meteorological data in the models. Maas and Erba showed a significant influence of the time factor. For the Erba the onset of agricultural land use in the catchment coincides with a drop in runoff. A similar causal relationship is suggested for the Maas. Land use can change the formation of runoff, which in turn can be used as an environmental indicator for sustainable land use.     

MICROWAVE REMOTE SENSING AS A METHOD FOR ESTIMATING SNOW RESERVES IN FORESTS OF THE WESTERN SAYAN

A Russian-American team of remote sensing researchers investigates the applications of active microwave (synthetic-aperture radar) imagery for estimation of water reserves in snowpack in the Western Sayan Range of East Siberia. Considerable attention is devoted to an explanation of the study's principal finding—that a fundamentally different statistical relationship exists between strength of the reflected radar signal and snow cover depth in open areas versus forested areas with high levels of canopy closure. Translated by Edward Torrey, Alexandria, VA from: Geografiya i prirodnyye resursy, 1999, No. 4, pp. 85-90.     

Precipitation trends in the area of Noril’sk Mining and Smelting Complex

Considered is the precipitation dynamics in the areas adjoining the Noril’sk Mining and Smelting Complex. An attempt is made to establish linkage between the trends in spatiotemporal precipitation dynamics and the atmospheric aerosol pollution.     

Sources,seasonal variability,and trajectories of atmospheric aerosols over central Siberian forest ecosystems

The possibility to obtain reliable data on the chemical and physical characteristics of aerosols and the regularities in the processes of their formation and transportation under the background natural-climatic conditions is a necessary requirement for verification of existing climate models [1, 2].