Observations of Climate Change Impacts on Terrestrial Ecosystems in Russia

Abstract

In Russia, the modern climate change manifests primarily as substantially increasing annual mean near-surface air temperature. Its rate is 2-2.5 times higher than for globe. The amount of precipitation in the most parts of the country is also growing, but the pattern is more heterogeneous. The annual number of dangerous hydrometeorological events causing damage has also increased by 2-3 times compared to the end of the 20th century. The following adverse events for terrestrial ecosystems are indicated in the literature most often: increase in seasonal temperatures, heat and cold waves, permafrost degradation, droughts and aridization, floods, hurricanes, dust storms, natural fires, coastal erosion, mudflows, landslides, avalanches, the invasion of alien species, an increase in outbreaks of pests and diseases. They manifest either as trends or as hazards. In this paper, occurrence of a negative event within the natural zone is verified using meteorological databases and special reports of Russian Hydrometeorological Service. Dangerous events are distributed unevenly throughout the country. For all zonal ecosystems (polar deserts, tundra, boreal forests, broadleaved forests, subtropical forests, steppes, deserts) and mountain ecosystems, the number of types for hazardous events exceeds the number of trends. For rivers and lakes, their number turned out to be equal, and for peatlands, the number of unfavorable trends turned out to be higher than dangerous events. The least number of negative trends is observed in deserts (2). In other types of ecosystems, 3-4 negative trends may appear simultaneously. The biggest number of hazards (9) is found in mountains, and almost the same number (8) in tundra, taiga and steppes. The minimum variety of considered hazardous phenomena is noted in peatlands.