Arctic warming peak due in 2030-35, then frosty winters return, expert says

ARKHANGELSK, June 8. /TASS/. The peak of warming in the Russian Arctic is expected in 2030-35, Director of the Laverov Federal Research Center for Integrated Arctic Studies (the Urals Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences) Ivan Bolotov told TASS. According to Professor Yury Shvartsman's model, the climate has 80-year cycles, and frosty winters may return to the Arctic regions after 2035.

"Professor Yury Shvartsman, founder of the European North geo-ecology school, worked a lot on climate models. In the early 1990s, he said we were on the ascending branch of a warm climate cycle, and it would be getting warmer and warmer in the north. That was supposed to continue until 2030-2035. He considered the 80-year climate cycle the main term. According to his concept, after 2030-35 will begin a descending branch of the cycle, a progressive cooling will begin, and severe winters will return to both the Arkhangelsk Region and the Russian North," the scientist said.

Shvartsman's models are based on previous cyclical climate, proved by the Arctic research that was actively conducted in the late 19th and in the early and mid-20th centuries. A noticeable warming of the Arctic Region in the 1930s and 1940s gave way to a cooling with a peak in the 1970s. "After the 1970s, again began the warming, and it was growing by leaps and bounds in the 1990s," he noted.

The Arctic has been warming up faster than any other region on the planet, he continued, explaining it by the fact that climatic factors gradients are increasing from the equator to the poles. Since the Earth has a ball shape, the temperature variation per kilometer increases towards high latitudes.

"Therefore, climate change is particularly acute in the Arctic and in the northern latitudes. Since these gradients are very close together, the closer to the pole, the shorter is the distance between the isotherms," the institute's director explained. An isotherm is a line on the map between places with the same temperature. Normally, specialists use July isotherm and January isotherm to assess the temperature-related climate in different regions.

Additionally, the Arctic is generally cold, so warming processes are more noticeable there due to the onset of more southern natural zones in the region. "In particular, the taiga, the forest zone have been advancing on the Arctic Zone, on the tundra. By the way, a similar phenomenon is observed in the mountains. Forest vegetation is intensively advancing in the mountains, and the higher, the less there is room for cold-loving species," the scientist added.

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