According to a survey by Professor Hiroki Takakura and others at the Center for Northeast Asian Studies, Tohoku University, global warming is affecting the ecosystem and local communities of permafrost at an unprecedented rate in the East Siberian region of Russia. It was revealed.Permafrost melts rapidly, deforestation and soil collapse continue, and if global warming continues, the ecosystem may change significantly.
In addition to Tohoku University, researchers from George Mason University in the United States, Leipzig University in Germany, Russian Academy of Sciences, Mie University, Nagoya University, etc. participate in the joint research group. Using the methods of hydrology, meteorology, and anthropology, we investigated the origin and change of depressions called thermokarst topography formed by the melting of permafrost 7,000 to 4,000 years ago, and the land use of residents.
Indigenous Sahas of Central Asian origin have taken advantage of the grassland ecosystem of thermokarst terrain to introduce cattle and horse pastoralism into the region, but recent warming has led to unprecedented rapid permafrost melting. It turned out that the devastation of the forest was spreading.
In some areas, forests have become grasslands, lakes have expanded, and soil has collapsed, suggesting that they are having a serious impact on the ecosystem.
Permafrost in Siberia has provided water cycles to ecosystems during the summer thawing period and has nurtured forest areas without sufficient rainfall.Not only is such a function being lost, but it has also been pointed out that the melting of methane contained in permafrost will further exacerbate global warming.
Paper information: [Anthropocene] Volume 18 (July 2017)
