(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Global heating in Siberia is so extreme that it reversed a 7000-year cooling trend. [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-18 An Altai snow leopard and cub are caught by a camera trap set up by a team working for the World Wild Fund for Nature in Russia's Sailugemsky National Park in southern Siberia. Siberia was on a cooling trend for 7,638 years before the industrial revolution. Today the vast frozen region at the top of the world is warming four to seven times faster than the rest of the planet, which is directly linked to greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. “There is ample opportunity for Arctic governance to get much worse,” That is not the only problem in Siberia; Vladimir Putin's war crimes in Ukraine have stopped all international climate research in the frozen but rapidly thawing carbon-rich permafrost. The Siberian climate researchers and activists have been labeled as foreign agents, and many have fled to the West to avoid arrest or murder by Russian Authorities. Yale 360 writes about the unprecedented temperatures and ramifications of wildfires, rapid permafrost thaw, and rising sea temperatures in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean are scaring the daylights out of climate scientists as the world flies blind in a highly significant region of the earth climate system. “There is ample opportunity for Arctic governance to get much worse,” says a former diplomat. Scientists analyzed tree rings in partially fossilized wood from Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula to track summer temperatures over the last 7,638 years — tree rings tend to be wider in warm, wet years and thinner in colder, drier years. The wood samples, collected in expeditions carried out over the last four decades, revealed a multi-millennial cooling trend that abruptly reversed at the onset of the Industrial Revolution. The long-term decline in Siberia’s summer temperatures is consistent with changes in the Earth’s orbit, while the recent warming trend reflects the sudden rise in heat-trapping carbon dioxide over the last 150 years. Today, Siberian summers are warming faster that at any time in the last 7,000 years, reaching unprecedented temperatures. The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications. snip Scientists say the rapid rise in Arctic temperatures is setting the stage for larger and more intense fires. Over the last two decades, wildfires in boreal forests accounted for 70 percent of fire-related forest loss globally. So far this year, wildfires in Siberia have burned more than 8 million acres of forest, an area roughly the size of the Netherlands. More ferocious wildfires and permafrost loss threaten to unleash more greenhouse gases, spurring further warming. The Industrial Revolution reversed a 7,000-year cooling trend in Siberia, according to a new study that underscores the profound impact of human-caused climate change. Russia has half of the Arctic land mass within its borders and jurisdiction over most of the Arctic Ocean. How Tensions With Russia Are Jeopardizing Key Arctic Research “So much of what we need to know about these impacts is being lost,” Regehr says. “It’s hard to see how we are going to be able to resume the science without the government and non-government funding [for] us and the Russians, and without us being there to work with their scientists.” snip Scientists from around the globe have collaborated in the Arctic at least since the Cold War. Three years after the Cuban missile crisis, representatives from the Soviet Union attended the first of many circumpolar meetings on the study of polar bears, which were in serious decline from overhunting. The Soviet Union was a signatory to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, which went into effect in 1973, and the five-nation Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, which went into force three years later. The Russians have also been intimately involved with the International Maritime Organization and the World Meteorological Organization, which provides the framework for international cooperation on weather, climate, and water cycles both in the Arctic and around the globe. And they have been a key player in the Arctic Council, the leading intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation among the eight Arctic states. The Council meets regularly — with nations holding two-year rotating chairmanships — to work on issues related to sustainable development and environmental protection. x A young protester holding a sign reading 'Strike for Climate' on a Moscow square didn’t have long to wait for police to arrive. His one-man protest lasted just 30 minutes before he was detained this summer for a second Friday in a row https://t.co/PfwIFxdtlZ 1/5 pic.twitter.com/fvUYAykIkn — Reuters Science News (@ReutersScience) September 24, 2020 'Foreign agents': Inside the Russian climate movement taking the government to court The climate case was submitted on 11 September. Five days later, Russia withdrew from the European Convention on Human Rights. This case may turn out to be the last the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) hears from the country. 18 individuals and two organisations filed the lawsuit, despite considerable risks from crackdowns on state opposition. Russian politicians accused those behind the lawsuit of using the “myth” of climate change to launch a “large-scale legal sabotage”. Chairman of the Just Russia party Sergei Mironov called it a “direct preparation for a new propaganda campaign against our countries and outright blackmail of the Russian leadership”. The pressure activists face, however, goes further than just the consequences of challenging a lack of ambitious climate action. Aleksandra Koroleva from Ecodefense! says there are now 70 organisations on the list of foreign agents, 19 people on the register of individuals and 172 people and organisations recognised as media foreign agents. Authorities insist that the laws are not discriminatory. But by 2021, 22 of the 32 environmental organisations that were initially added to the list had closed. Others have struggled to survive by adapting to tightening restrictions on their operations. x I don’t know who may need to hear this but declaring Monday 19th as a bank holiday but cancel events, funerals, cinemas (unless they’re screening a specific funeral), arresting republicans and anyone who looks like to be anti-monarch is giving all North Korea vibes. — JM (@J_______mahm) September 13, 2022 Russia, of course, is not alone in demonizing the climate movement. ‘Violent’ Climate Activists Next Global ThreatSays Lobbying Group Funded by Russia and Big Oil A top NATO-backed think tank is trying to rewrite its receipt of funding from Russia following a Byline Times investigation into its demonization of climate action. Vladimir Putin’s aim is to sow chaos in Europe. That is why it’s particularly significant that this British national security lobbying group funded by four giant oil and gas firms, several NATO members, along with the Russian Government, is warning that climate activists will turn to “violence”. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) published the claims in February in a new research paper, ‘Green Defence: The Defence and Military Implications of Climate Change for Europe’, shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The IISS is funded by some of the world’s biggest fossil fuel majors – including BP, Chevron, Shell and Equinor, as well as the British Army, US military, other Western governments, private military contractors, and authoritarian Gulf regimes. It also receives funding from the Russian Government – the biggest oil and gas exporter in the world. However, this detail was quietly removed from the IISS’ website without notice, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Its new paper claims that “violent” climate activism is among the world’s top climate-related security threats. For further reading (by Daily Kos Blogger Peter Peter Olandt) : Ukraine: The First (or Third?) Climate War [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/18/2164519/-Global-heating-in-Siberia-is-so-extreme-that-it-reversed-a-7000-year-cooling-trend Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/