Siberia is one of the areas where global warming will be most evident. Perceivable changes in the ecosystem and the cryosphere, such as the increase of winter temperature, shift up of snow melting season, or, snow precipitation increase, are expected. They have already been reported in recent years. Such climate changes will cause the long-term change of permafrost dynamics, vegetation dynamics, water cycle, carbon cycle, and consequently the positive feedback to the climate change. Especially, the impact of climate change appears drastically in regional scale. The regional climate change damages to the agriculture, forestry, stock farming, and social infrastructure such as buildings and roads through the flood and weakening of ground. We observed the decline of forest due to the humidification of soil, the damage to the forest due to the insect pest as they come to serve through a winter, and the exposure of permafrost due to the grooving of land by flood called as “Ovlahgi”.

 

This research project seeks to elucidate three aspects from both the natural and the human social science perspectives. These three points are (1) the characteristics of the water and carbon cycles, including the driving forces of their annual variation and predictions into the near future, (2) the capability of multi-ethnic population to adapt to the changes who have the historically unique social systems, and (3) the feedback of water and carbon cycle changes and the people’s activities to the climate.

In this fiscal year, several sub-group meetings and a domestic workshop with all Japanese members participated were held. In summer, more than half of Japanese members visited Russia to discuss the cooperation and to get information or data.

 

The activities of each group are as follows:

 

1) The Siberia bird’s eye group (Group 1)

- Flood due to river ice jams in the Lena River was inspected from Landsat satellite data. Timing, water level, and the flow rate of the river ice blocks were estimated.

- Studies of carbon cycle have been started using ASTER and MODIS satellite data by means of BEAMS algorithm. Atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentrations derived from GOSAT satellite were tried to use independently in the algorithm.

- Strategy to use the GOSAT data to retrieve sink and source distribution in Siberia has been discussed. A research scientist was assigned to do this job.

- Since forest fires are expected to increase in Siberia, the use of GOSAT data to identify the emission rate of carbon dioxide and methane has been discussed.

 

2) The water cycle and ecosystem interactions study group (Group 2)

- Understanding the responses of the forest ecosystem to the past (100 year schedule) climate change were started using isotope analyses of tree rings.

- A new monitoring tower was successfully constructed and meteorological / hydrological measurements were started at Ust’Maya, located around 500 km to the south-east of the existing monitoring tower at Yakutsk. Because annual precipitation at the new site is 1.5 times greater than that at Yakutsk, we can compare the surface fluxes of heat, water vapor, and carbon dioxide to detect forest ecosystem responses in conjunction with precipitation amount.

- Estimation of the Lena River discharge using a hydrological cycle model, in which land surface models and runoff models combined, was carried out.

 

3) The human ecology group (Group 3)

- Main task of the influence of global warming on the society was confirmed in the sub-group meeting.

- Field studies revealed that availability of drinking water (stored as ice in winter), availability of bio-fuels (mainly wood), pasture, land productivity, and patterns of animal reproduction for huntings are changing.

- The exposure of permafrost due to the grooving of land by flood called as “Ovlahgi” was investigated with the research group 2 and with a researcher of the Melnikov Permafrost Institute, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

- It was revealed that the number of wild and domestic reindeer has dramatically declined in recent years. Mounting devices on wild reindeer were prepared to monitor reindeer tracks using satellite positioning systems. The problem of data collection was discussed with Russian partners.

 

4) Common research targets

- At the domestic workshop held from 5 to 6 December 2009, fruitful discussion of whole groups were held and the common research targets were focused on the water and cryospheric environment changes related with the frequent flood.

Climate change and social change intersect in complex ways and are often difficult to predict. We believe that the human dimension of climate change in Siberia is an important factor, because human reaction to changing environments has the potential to exacerbate, or perhaps mitigate, negative impacts. Analysis of difference in social response to environmental change will improve understanding of social-ecological fragility and vulnerability.