Russia (bbabo.net), - The Arctic is becoming more unpredictable, including for tourists. And, alas, unsafe. Of course, ski lovers, hunters of Russian cold and polar lights will still have enough snow and spectacles. However, very soon the Arctic landscape, according to the general opinion of scientists, will change dramatically.

The area of ​​the largest IGAN glacier in the Polar Urals has lost three million cubic meters over the past year. This is about 270 five-story houses with three entrances. And in half a century, the glacier has more than halved. The temperature increase and the melting of glaciers have been especially intense since 2010.

Over the past 50 years, the average annual air temperature in Yamal has risen by 3.5 degrees. Over the years, the Moscow State University glacier has completely melted, which in terms of volume was practically not inferior to IGAN. According to scientists, by 2020 only a small lake remained from it.

Experts do not exclude that in ten or fifteen years the wet spot will remain from IGAN. At the same time, as scientists note, now in the valley where IGAN is located, the thickness of the snow is avalanche-prone. As a result of the temperature difference in winter and melting closer to spring, as a rule, several layers of different densities are formed with a large amount of ice crusts. Therefore, warns a researcher at Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov Mikhail Ivanov, tourists need to be very careful in spring. By the way, according to one version, the Dyatlov group in 1959 died from an avalanche in the vicinity of Mount Holatchakhl in the Polar Urals.

What awaits tourists in the coming years, according to scientists, depends on how intensely the warming will proceed. And in the Arctic, as you know, it is happening more rapidly than in other regions of the country and the world. So the landscape here will change in the coming years.

In the valley where the IGAN Arctic glacier is located, the thickness of the snow is avalanche-prone. Tourists need to be very careful in spring

Even today, climate change is already being fully reflected in the landscape structure in the Arctic, as shown by the observations of scientists at the test sites in the Nadymsky and Tazovsky regions of Yamal. The area of ​​lakes there for half a century has decreased by almost one and a half times, there is an intensive destruction of river banks and soil erosion. The risk of natural fires also increases sharply.

And what about the world-famous gas funnels in Yamal! Their depth is from a 20-storey building. They were formed due to explosions of gas escaping due to the melting of permafrost. So the change has just begun. And they won't stop as long as climate warming continues.

Antarctic

The mystery of the Ice Age

567 thousand years is the age of the ice, which was raised by scientists of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute at the Vostok station in Central Antarctica.

The well from which the ice was extracted is located in the thickness of the glacier above Lake Vostok. Such an ancient layer was taken from a depth of 3453 meters. The task of scientists is to get to a depth of 3610 meters, where older ice lies - up to 1.2 million years. And it can be achieved in a year.

As Alexander Makarov, director of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, explained, the ice dome over Lake Vostok contains unique data on the processes that have taken place on Earth over several million years. Ice cores obtained by polar explorers can be used to accurately reconstruct the temperature regime, evaluate solar and volcanic activity, density and gas composition of the atmosphere, including the content of greenhouse gases. And find out what climatic conditions were then on Earth.

And on the basis of the data obtained, build models of future possible climate fluctuations on the planet. They will form the basis of research in the most important branches of science and economics. Now the task is to get ice in 1.5 million years.

“A million years ago, the Middle Pleistocene climate transition happened on Earth - the duration of the main climatic cycle increased from 40 to 100 thousand years, and the amplitude of temperature fluctuations doubled,” notes Alexander Makarov. “This means that the time gap between the onset of the next “ice age” has increased by 2.5 times. One of the possible reasons is the decrease in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Ice 1.5 million years old or more will help us check this version."

Lake Vostok - one of the largest on Earth, was discovered in Antarctica at the end of the last century in the area of ​​the Russian Antarctic station Vostok. For millions of years, its ecosystem has been isolated under ice at a depth of about 4 kilometers. This is the least explored place on the planet. The estimated area of ​​the lake is about 16 thousand square kilometers.

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