A “Happy Generation, Born in a Free Poland” Children Deported from Eastern Poland to the Soviet Interior 1940–1941

Atmospheric dust dynamics over Central Asia: A perspective view from loess deposits

Discussion of the paper “Loess genesis and worldwide distribution” by Yanrong Li, Wenhui Shi, Adnan Aydin, et al.

Special Settlements in Soviet Russia in the 1930s–50s Reviewed by Oxana Klimkova Translated by Boris Gorshkov Viktor Arkad´evich Berdinskikh, Spetsposelentsy:Politicheskaia ssylka narodov Sovetskoi Rossii [Special Settlers: Political Exile of the Peoples of Soviet Russia]. 527 pp. Kirov: KOGUP, 2003. ISBN 5881864891. Reissued under the same title: 765 pp. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2005. ISBN 5867933571. T. V. Starevskaia Diakina, ed., Spetspereselentsy v SSSR [Special Settlers in the USSR]. 824 pp. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2004. ISBN 5824306085. Vol. 5 of Iu. N. Afanas´ev et al., eds., Istoriia stalinskogo Gulaga: Konets 1920kh–pervaia polovina 1950kh godov. Sobranie dokumentov, 7 vols. [History of the Stalinist Gulag: The End of the 1920s to the First Half of the 1950s. A Collection of Documents]. Moscow: Rosspen, 2004–5. ISBN 5824306044 (set). Viktor Nikolaevich Zemskov, Spetsposelentsy v SSSR, 1930–1960 [Special Settlers in the USSR, 1930–60]. 304 pp. Moscow: Nauka, 2003. ISBN 5020103152. Contemporary Russian and Western scholarship has shown steadily increasing interest in uncovering the history of special settlements for deported population groups in the Soviet Union, sometimes termed "Soviet internal exile." Soviet authorities began to transfer problematic segments of the population to "special settlements" in distant and inaccessible regions as a repressive measure at the beginning of the 1920s and continued to employ this technique through the early 1950s. Deportations and the system of special settlements were primarily precautionary measures aimed at preventing anti-state demonstrations by certain "risk groups" that might have significant consequences. In their appearance, these places of special exile (often called spetsposelki) usually did not differ [End Page 105] from ordinary rural settlements.1 Their inhabitants, however, had significant limitations on their civil rights: they were subject to severe restrictions on freedom of movement and found themselves under the constant control of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD). Local administrative organs or so-called "special commands" (spetskomendatura) fulfilled this oversight function. In some cases "elders," who were elected by the deported individuals, answered to district officials (upolnomochennye) who regularly visited the settlements to check on the number of special settlers and the state of affairs in the settlements. The principle of collective responsibility (krugovaiaporuka) ensured the reliability of data submitted in this manner, for under this system the elders answered for any problems in the settlements or any falsifications in the reports.2 This particular regime envisioned the residence of special settlers together with their families within the limits of a region determined by the NKVD (later Ministry of Internal Affairs [MVD]). This system also encompassed compulsory labor by the special settlers in branches of the economy determined by the security organs as well as the absence of any clearly defined term of exile for the inhabitants. The existing historical literature traditionally presents 1930 as the watershed year in the history of the special settlements system. This year witnessed mass deportations of the dekulakized peasants to the country's distant regions, a development that gave rise to a peculiar social category, so-called spetsposelentsy (special settlers).3 Throughout the period from the 1930s to [End Page 106] the 1950s, this category encompassed hundreds of thousands of families. Areas of special settlement were most often located in the northern and eastern regions of the USSR. The largest regions of exile were Kazakhstan, western Siberia, the Urals, the northern stretches of European Russia, and Central Asia. The initial waves of deportees were directed to the North, the Urals, and western Siberia, but with time the focus broadened to include Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Oftentimes, the state employed forced deportation to further its goals of colonizing the country's uninhabited and inaccessible regions. In October 1940, the Gulag system comprised 1,645 special settlements, overseen by 160 regional and 741 district administrations. A total of 258,448 families—959,472 individuals—lived in these settlements.4 By 1 January 1953, the number of special settlers had grown to 2,753,356 (Zemskov, 205). The various...

Introduction: The Soviet cultural legacy Sevket Akyildiz and Richard Carlson Part 1: Central Asia 1924-1991: Implementing a Soviet culture and society 1. 'Learn, learn, learn!' Soviet style in Uzbekistan: Implementation and planning Sevket Akyildiz 2. The emancipation of women in Soviet Central Asia from 1917 to 1940: Strategies, successes, and failures Jacqui Freeman 3. The Soviet construction of Kazakh batyrs Harun Yilmaz 4. The concept of traditional music in Central Asia: From the revolution to independence Alyssa Moxley 5. Political, economic and historical foundations of Central Asian cinema Barry Mowell 6. Socialist realism: Cooperation and challenge among non-Russian Central Asian writers Alva Robinson 7. The Second World War in Central Asia: Events, identity, and memory Alex Calvo 8. Becoming Soviet in Turkmenistan: The unseen influence of the 'special settlers' Isaac Scarborough Part 2: The challenges of independence 9. The failure of liberal democratisation in Kazakhstan: The role of international investment and civil society in impending political reform Richard Carlson 10. Social networking practices: Continuity or rupture with the Soviet past? Frederick Lamy 11. National identity formation in post-Soviet Central Asia: The Soviet legacy, primordialism, and patterns of ideological development since 1991 Diana T. Kudaibergenova 12. Deconstructing communal violence during the civil war in Tajikistan: The case of the Pamiris David P. Straub 13. The relics of 1991: Memories and phenomenology of the post-Soviet generation Christopher Schwartz

Cool and wet weather conditions hit northern Central Asia, East Asia and central North America during the 2009 summer in concert with a strong jet stream and a prominent meandering upper-level circulation in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes despite the fact that the year 2009 is the fifth warmest year globally in the modern record. It is found that the conspicuous atmospheric variability in the entire Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes during the summer of 2009 was caused by a combination of teleconnections associated with significant tropical thermal forcings, strong polar forcing, and interaction between high-frequency weather events and climate anomalies. The strong negative circumglobal teleconnection pattern associated with the deficient Indian summer monsoon rainfall and developing El Niño condition was the major contributor to the cool and wet summer in June. On the other hand, the July weather conditions were attributable to the high-latitude impact of the unprecedented negative Arctic Oscillation, together with the Rossby wave response to the subtropical heating generated by convective activities over the Western North Pacific summer monsoon region. It is also noted that enhanced storm track activity and frequent cold surges from high-latitudes may have played a role in the cool and wet summer over the regions of interest.

There have been hiatuses in global warming since the 1990s, and their potential impacts have attracted extensive attention and discussion. Changes in temperature not only directly affect the greening of vegetation but can also indirectly alter both the growth state and the growth tendency of vegetation by altering other climatic elements. The middle-high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere (NH) constitute the region that has experienced the most warming in recent decades; therefore, identifying the effects of warming hiatuses on the vegetation greening in that region is of great importance. Using satellite-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data and climatological observation data from 1982–2013, we investigated hiatuses in warming trends and their impact on vegetation greenness in the NH. Our results show that the regions with warming hiatuses in the NH accounted for 50.1% of the total area and were concentrated in Mongolia, central China, and other areas. Among these regions, 18.8% of the vegetation greenness was inhibited in the warming hiatus areas, but 31.3% of the vegetation grew faster. Because temperature was the main positive climatic factor in central China, the warming hiatuses caused the slow vegetation greening rate. However, precipitation was the main positive climatic factor affecting vegetation greenness in Mongolia; an increase in precipitation accelerated vegetation greening. The regions without a warming hiatus, which were mainly distributed in northern Russia, northern central Asia, and other areas, accounted for 49.9% of the total area. Among these regions, 21.4% of the vegetation grew faster over time, but 28.5% of the vegetation was inhibited. Temperature was the main positive factor affecting vegetation greenness in northern Russia; an increase in temperature promoted vegetation greening. However, radiation was the main positive climatic factor in northern central Asia; reductions in radiation inhibited the greenness of vegetation. Our findings suggest that warming hiatuses differentially affect vegetation greening and depend on meteorological factors, especially the main meteorological factors.

Based on the outputs of historical and future representative concentration pathway (RCP) experiments produced by 28 models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), future changes in climatic mean, interannual standard deviation (ISD), and long-term trends of the annual precipitation over central Asia (CA) have been estimated. Under different emission scenarios during the twenty-first century, the climatic mean and ISD (long-term trends) of the annual precipitation over CA projected by the five best models’ ensemble mean show very similar (quite different) spatial patterns to those in the twentieth century. Relatively stronger increasing rates (over 3 mm decade−1 in RCP2.6 and over 6 mm decade−1 in RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) are located over northern CA and the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. Compared to the situations in the twentieth century, the climatic mean, ISD, and long-term trends of the projected annual precipitation over most of CA under different emission scenarios exhibit robust increasing changes during the twenty-first century. The projected increasing changes in the climatic mean (ISD) of the CA annual mean range from 10% to 35% (10%–90%) under different emission scenarios with relatively large increases over Xinjiang, China (northern CA and Xinjiang). The increasing trends of the annual precipitation over most of CA are projected to intensify with relatively large increases (over 3–9 mm decade−1) located over northern CA, the Tian Shan Mountains, and northern Tibet during the twenty-first century. In addition, the intensities of the increasing changes in the climatic mean, ISD, and trends of CA annual precipitation are intensified with the emissions increased correspondingly. Further analyses of the possible mechanisms related to the projected changes in precipitation indicate that the increases of the annual precipitation over CA in the twenty-first century are mainly attributed to the enhanced precipitable water that results from strengthened water vapor transport and surface evaporation.

<p>Central Asia is a semiarid to arid region that is sensitive to hydrological changes. We use the Community Atmosphere Model, version 5 (CAM5), equipped with a water-tagging capability, to investigate the major moisture sources for climatological precipitation and its long-term trends over central Asia. Europe, the North Atlantic Ocean, and local evaporation, which explain 33.2% ± 1.5%, 23.0% ± 2.5%, and 19.4% ± 2.2% of the precipitation, respectively, are identified as the most dominant moisture sources for northern central Asia (NCA). For precipitation over southern central Asia (SCA), Europe, the North Atlantic, and local evaporation contribute 25.4% ± 2.7%, 18.0% ± 1.7%, and 14.7% ± 1.9%, respectively. In addition, the contributions of South Asia (8.6% ± 1.7%) and the Indian Ocean (9.5% ± 2.0%) are also substantial for SCA. Modulated by the seasonal meridional shift in the subtropical westerly jet, moisture originating from the low and midlatitudes is important in winter, spring, and autumn, whereas northern Europe contributes more to summer precipitation. We also explain the observed drying trends over southeastern central Asia in spring and over NCA in summer during 1956–2005. The drying trend over southeastern central Asia in spring is mainly due to the decrease in local evaporation and weakened moisture fluxes from the Arabian Peninsula and Arabian Sea associated with the warming of the western Pacific Ocean. The drying trend over NCA in summer can be attributed to a decrease in local evaporation and reduced moisture from northern Europe that is due to the southward shift of the subtropical westerly jet.</p>

Central Asia faces an increasing challenge related to water resources arising from severe droughts and floods that have impacted the region in the past decades. Using a comprehensive set of extreme precipitation indices, we assess the performance of CMIP6 models in representing observed precipitation extremes and investigate future responses of these extremes to greenhouse gas emissions under four shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP). Particularly, this study identifies robust signals of projected changes in spring and summer precipitation extremes over central Asia. Results show that the CMIP6 models reasonably reproduced the spatial distribution and variability of precipitation extremes over southern central Asia (SCA) and northern central Asia (NCA) during the spring and summer seasons, respectively. Across the SSPs, the CMIP6 models project a decrease in total spring wet‐day precipitation amount (PRCPTOT) over SCA and a significant increase in PRCPTOT over the NCA. The projected changes are characterized by a significant increase in maximum consecutive 5‐day precipitation (RX5day), wet‐day intensity (SDII), and the number of heavy precipitation days (R10mm); these suggest that the spring will be characterized by intense precipitation extremes. Moreover, no significant change is projected for consecutive wet days (CWD) and dry spells (CDD) over SCA. Nonetheless, the CMIP6 models project a significant increase in summer PRCPTOT over SCA and a decrease in summer PRCPTOT, RX5day, R10mm, SDII, and CWD over NCA while projecting a significant and robust increase in dry spells. It is also found that the severity of the projected dry spell deepens across the SSP spectra and gets more pronounced towards the end of the 21st century. Notably, the intermodel spread of the precipitation extremes is smaller during the spring over SCA, larger during the summer season over NCA, and more probable in the warmer future.

Abstract. The study presents a statistically based seasonal precipitation forecast model, which automatically identifies suitable predictors from globally gridded sea surface temperature (SST) and climate variables by means of an extensive data-mining procedure and explicitly avoids the utilization of typical large-scale climate indices. This leads to an enhanced flexibility of the model and enables its automatic calibration for any target area without any prior assumption concerning adequate predictor variables. Potential predictor variables are derived by means of a cell-wise correlation analysis of precipitation anomalies with gridded global climate variables under consideration of varying lead times. Significantly correlated grid cells are subsequently aggregated to predictor regions by means of a variability-based cluster analysis. Finally, for every month and lead time, an individual random-forest-based forecast model is constructed, by means of the preliminary generated predictor variables. Monthly predictions are aggregated to running 3-month periods in order to generate a seasonal precipitation forecast. The model is applied and evaluated for selected target regions in central and south Asia. Particularly for winter and spring in westerly-dominated central Asia, correlation coefficients between forecasted and observed precipitation reach values up to 0.48, although the variability of precipitation rates is strongly underestimated. Likewise, for the monsoonal precipitation amounts in the south Asian target area, correlations of up to 0.5 were detected. The skill of the model for the dry winter season over south Asia is found to be low. A sensitivity analysis with well-known climate indices, such as the El Niño– Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the East Atlantic (EA) pattern, reveals the major large-scale controlling mechanisms of the seasonal precipitation climate for each target area. For the central Asian target areas, both ENSO and NAO are identified as important controlling factors for precipitation totals during moist winter and spring seasons. Drought conditions are found to be triggered by a cold ENSO phase in combination with a positive state of NAO in northern central Asia, and by cold ENSO conditions in combination with a negative NAO phase in southern central Asia. For the monsoonal summer precipitation amounts over southern Asia, the model suggests a distinct negative response to El Niño events.

In the context of global warming, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather and climate events have increased, especially in Central Asia (CA). In this study, we investigate the characteristics of summer extreme precipitation (SEP) in CA and its relationship with the surface sensible heat (SSH) variation over the central–eastern Tibetan Plateau (CETP). The results suggest that the distribution of SEP in CA is extremely uneven, and the SEP thresholds range from 2 to 32 mm/day, and 80% of them are concentrated in 4–10 mm/day. Both the total amount of SEP and the number of SEP days show significant increasing trends, with the climatic tendencies of 4.4 mm/decade and 0.4 day/decade, respectively. The SSH anomalies over the CETP can affect the SEP and summer drought in CA by regulating the strength of South Asia High (SAH) and the subtropical jet over CA. The strong SSH anomalies over the CETP in late spring (April–May) can be transmitted from the lower to the upper layers through the continuous heating to the atmosphere and lead to the anomalously strong subtropical high over northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, the anomalously weak subtropical westerly jet over CA and the anomalously strong SAH in summer. At the same time, the Ural ridge strengthens, the CA trough weakens, and the northern CA is controlled by an anomaly of warm high-pressure ridge. Therefore, the anomaly of water vapor convergence in northern CA weakens. The SEP there will be abnormally less, and the summer drought intensifies. When the SSH over CETP is anomalously weak in late spring, the key circulations are just the opposite. Furthermore, the anomalous water vapor from the Arctic, North Atlantic and western Pacific converges in northern CA and northern Xinjiang, China, which is conducive to the generation of widespread extreme precipitation and the alleviation of summer drought in these regions.

As a major source of moisture in Central Asia (CA), snowfall may significantly impact agriculture and economics in CA. The study has investigated the dominant modes of snowfall frequency during winter over CA and associated mechanisms. The first EOF mode (EOF1) of snowfall frequency corresponds to a homogeneous pattern over CA. In contrast, the second EOF mode (EOF2) is characterized by reversed anomalies over northern and southern CA. The mechanisms of the interannual variation of the two leading modes are different. EOF1 is influenced by the sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) over the North Atlantic and eastern tropical Pacific. Positive SSTA in the eastern tropical Pacific may stimulate a zonal wave train that propagates eastward and induce an anomalous cyclone in CA. The anomalous cyclone associated with ascending motions and water vapor transport convergence can contribute to increased snowfall frequency over CA. Besides, the interaction between the North Atlantic Oscillation and North Atlantic triple SSTA may also strengthen the zonal wave train. EOF2 is affected by the stratospheric polar vortex which is related to the wave reflections in winter. The wave reflections may strengthen the coupling of atmospheric circulation in the stratosphere and the troposphere, inducing a positive (negative) geopotential height anomaly over southern (northern) CA. These geopotential height anomalies may contribute to increased and decreased synoptic-scale wave activity over northern and southern CA which is conducive to the dipole mode of snowfall frequency over CA.

Central Asia is a semiarid to arid region that is sensitive to hydrological changes. We use the Community Atmosphere Model, version 5 (CAM5), equipped with a water-tagging capability, to investigate the major moisture sources for climatological precipitation and its long-term trends over central Asia. Europe, the North Atlantic Ocean, and local evaporation, which explain 33.2% ± 1.5%, 23.0% ± 2.5%, and 19.4% ± 2.2% of the precipitation, respectively, are identified as the most dominant moisture sources for northern central Asia (NCA). For precipitation over southern central Asia (SCA), Europe, the North Atlantic, and local evaporation contribute 25.4% ± 2.7%, 18.0% ± 1.7%, and 14.7% ± 1.9%, respectively. In addition, the contributions of South Asia (8.6% ± 1.7%) and the Indian Ocean (9.5% ± 2.0%) are also substantial for SCA. Modulated by the seasonal meridional shift in the subtropical westerly jet, moisture originating from the low and midlatitudes is important in winter, spring, and autumn, whereas northern Europe contributes more to summer precipitation. We also explain the observed drying trends over southeastern central Asia in spring and over NCA in summer during 1956–2005. The drying trend over southeastern central Asia in spring is mainly due to the decrease in local evaporation and weakened moisture fluxes from the Arabian Peninsula and Arabian Sea associated with the warming of the western Pacific Ocean. The drying trend over NCA in summer can be attributed to a decrease in local evaporation and reduced moisture from northern Europe that is due to the southward shift of the subtropical westerly jet.

The influence of ice sheet and solar insolation on Holocene moisture evolution in northern Central Asia

Evaluation of CMIP6 HighResMIP models in simulating precipitation over Central Asia