8 February 2010
global warming and russia: benefit, costs and veracity
Recent days have seen a number of contradictory arguments about what might happen to Russia under conditions of global warming. rbc.ru reports on an American study by the Pew Group which claims that melting Arctic ice will damage permafrost and create further unspecified problems, followed by a number of rather bland comments from one Alexander Bedritsky, Russian President of the WMO on Russia’s steps to meet the challenge. Again, Russian voices in favour of the global warming views espoused by the IPCC tend to be based in international organisations.
The Russian language site bblv from Latvia has very little time for the global warming argument and really criticizes the recent problems at the IPCC and the realities of climate science indicated by the so-called ‘climategate.’ For this author global warming is a scare-story put out by special interests – ‘ а не страшилки, вызванные чиьми-то корыстными интересами.’
The bblv article makes reference to a potential slowing down of the thermahaline circulation, that would prevent the warmer waters from the south coming north, which makes newsland.ru and its article on the great future of the northern sea route puzzling. In a way, collectively, Russian media opinion cannot make up its mind about global warming. When it thinks about the nsr then it is carried away by predictions about melting ice, when it thinks about the need to restrict carbon emissions though it attempts to discredit the false science of the IPCC.
The newsland piece, though, is equivoval. It cites scientific opinion from the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Scientific Research Institute which argues that we have now seen a peak in warming and melting in the Arctic, and links back to the theory that climate is linked to oscillations in the earth’s orbit or solar activity. It therefore recommends that investment in ice-breakers will be needed to make the most from the nsr.
