Northern Eurasia glacier response to global climate change (scientific note)

• Main Authors: Kononov,Yuriy, Ananicheva,Maria, Davidovich, Natalia
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences/Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences/Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences 2001
• Subjects: Arctic; Ela; Severnaya Zemlya; Climate change; Franz Joseph Land; Global warming; Ice cap; Memoirs of National Institute of Polar Research; Novaya Zemlya; Polar Research
• Online Access: https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=2373; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00002373/; https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=2373&item_no=1&attribute_id=18&file_no=1

One way to predict climate change in the future is reconstruction of former climates. This approach is called the method of paleoanalogues. In this paper the climatic reconstructions for Holocene optimum (scenario 1) and Eemian Interglacial (scenario 2) are used as paleoanalogues of possible future climate warming. Two techniques worked out by authors have been applied to calculate the change of the equilibrium line altitude (ELA) : (1) based on calculations of ablation and accumulation on the Novaya Zemlya ice cap (the insufficient paleodata situation) and (2) on the other ice caps of the Eurasian Arctic (the insufficient paleodata situation). The latter involves the term "lower bottom of chionosphere" which under some assumptions is transformed into the ELA of each ice cap under climatic conditions of the Holocene and Eemian Interglacials. According to these scenarios, the greatest changes of air temperature will be in the Arctic. For example, under global warming appropriate to scenario 1,the mean summer temperature in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago will rise by 4℃; according to scenario 2-by 8℃. By both scenarios the archipelagoes of Franz Joseph Land. Novaya Zemlya and Severnaya Zemlya will undergo the greatest warming in Northern Hemisphere. Annual precipitation will also reach maximum increase in this region (+100mm under scenario 1 and +200mm under scenario 2 in comparison with present values).