Climate changes in Siberia, forest fires and ice cover of the Northern Sea Route in summer months

Abstract

Improving the methods of long-term forecasting of changes in the ice cover of various parts of the water area of the Northern Sea Route is an urgent problem of hydrography and navigation safety. One of the approaches to its solution is to identify natural processes that generate significant responses in these changes that are delayed by a few weeks or months. The authors put forward a hypothesis that the changes in the ice coverage of some parts of the Arctic seas in the summer months can be significantly influenced by climate warming in the feeding areas of Siberian rivers in the spring months. The aim of the work is to test this hypothesis, as well as to assess the role of forest fires in Siberia in this process. The data of weather and ice observations, as well as GLORYS12v.1 and ERA 5 reanalysis were used as factual material. It has been established that climate warming in the basins of Siberian rivers during the spring flood can cause significant responses - changes in the ice cover of certain areas of the Arctic seas in May – June against the background of responses caused by variations in soot flows from forest fires delivered to the Arctic by southern cyclones. This fact is confirmed for the eastern part of the East Siberian Sea, which includes the near-estuary seaside of the Kolyma River and other sections of the water area of the Northern Sea Route belonging to this sea. The results obtained confirm the hypothesis put forward and can be used for long-term forecasting of the ice coverage in a number of sections of the Northern Sea Route.