Russia’s war is weakening scientists’ ability to track the climate

Subject: Environment

Section: Climate change

Context:

Human activities are warming the Earth, and war is now obstructing precise climate change measurements. The Arctic is heating up nearly four times faster than the global average, which could lead to severe consequences such as melting permafrost and rising sea levels, impacting ecosystems and the climate worldwide.

How the Russia-Ukraine War Impacts Climate Tracking:

Arctic research deteriorated due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia, which comprises nearly half of the Arctic region, has become inaccessible to foreign scientists.
This situation has disrupted the work of the International Network for Terrestrial Research and Monitoring in the Arctic (INTERACT), hindering comprehensive climate studies due to the lack of data flow from Russian territories.
Researchers utilized earth-system models (ESMs) to study Arctic ecosystem conditions, focusing on eight key variables such as temperature, vegetation, precipitation, and snow depth.
Excluding Russian data from Arctic climate studies, particularly from Siberia, has significantly increased biases in understanding the Arctic’s ecosystem changes.
INTERACT stations, generally located in regions not fully representative of the Arctic’s diversity, miss crucial data from colder, drier, and carbon-rich areas of Siberia.
This exclusion has led to predictions that underestimate the ecosystem variables’ changes, equating to an 80-year advance in climate change impacts.

International Network for Terrestrial Research and Monitoring in the Arctic (INTERACT):

INTERACT is an infrastructure project under the auspices of SCANNET, an arctic network of 74 terrestrial field bases (with an additional 21 research stations in Russia on pause) in northern Europe, the US, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Scotland as well as stations in northern alpine areas.
The project aims to enhance research and monitoring capabilities across the Arctic via the Transnational Access Program, supported by EU funding.
Its primary goal is to enable the identification, understanding, prediction, and response to environmental changes in the Arctic, a region with limited observing capacity due to its vastness and sparse population.
INTERACT is multidisciplinary, supporting thousands of scientists globally in fields like glaciology, permafrost, climate, ecology, biodiversity, and biogeochemical cycling.
Besides research, INTERACT stations support international networks in single disciplines and contribute to education by hosting summer schools.