Russia, China to research climate change impact on permafrost

YAKUTSK, October 7. /TASS/. Joint research on the climate change impact on the environment, engineering structures and river hydrology will be conducted by specialists of the Melnikov Permafrost Institute (the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch) and the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (the Chinese Academy of Sciences), the Russian institute’s Director Mikhail Zheleznyak told TASS.
“Representatives of these two institutes have won a Russian-Chinese grant related to the study of hydrological conditions (groundwater runoff, supplies features) of small rivers, which, undoubtedly, are associated with permafrost conditions. We have offered our Chinese colleagues joint expeditionary research in Yakutia’s Arctic Zone along the Indigirka and the Lena Rivers, including at the Samoilovsky Island Arctic station,” he said, noting the institutes had signed a cooperation agreement.
In various geo-cryology conditions, small rivers’ flow parameters may be estimated with higher accuracy compared to those of large rivers, he stressed.
“We will be able to give a more accurate assessment of the climate change impact on response of frozen strata and on changes in hydrological conditions,” he added.
China has many years of experience in permafrost’s scientific research. The country takes the third line in the global rating in terms of permafrost’s area, which occupies about 22% of China’s territory.
“Permafrost is mainly in the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau and in China’s northeast. According to observations between 1970 and 2019, the permafrost’s lower limit (on northern slopes) rose by about 47 meters. The intermittent permafrost’s northern boundary has retreated to the south by about 1-2 km,” the Chinese institute’s representative Ping Wang said.
The institute was formed in 1999 by the merger of the Institute of Geography and the Commission for the Integrated Survey of Natural Resources. The institute employs more than 700 specialists, including 10 academicians and 191 professors. It has six key laboratories.
Among others, there are stations to monitor the high mountain meadows ecosystem, an experimental station to study the Tibetan Plateau ecosystems.
Experts forecast, permafrost degradation on the Tibetan Plateau in 2041-2070 may amount to 41%, in 2071-2099 – to 64%.
In September, the International Chinese-Russian-Mongolian Center for the Study of Central Asia’s cold regions started working at the Melnikov Institute. The parties signed a memorandum on it back in May 2024 in Lanzhou (China) to promote sustainable development of cold and arid regions in the three countries.
The center was initiated by the Northwestern Institute of Ecology and Natural Resources (China’s Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou), the Institute of Geography of Mongolia, the Melnikov Institute of Permafrost (the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch).
“We have opened this center to combine climate change research and to study the permafrost reaction in the interface zone of our territories and in the Arctic Zone of Russia’s North-East. One of the tasks is to ensure stability of engineering structures. The work will be aimed at studying changes in the cryosphere, including the cryolithozone degradation and its impact on natural and technical systems, on desertification and on assessment of environmental consequences,” the Russian institute’s director said.
In 2018, the Melnikov Institute and China’s State Laboratory of Engineering Geocryology organized an International Research Center. The Laboratory is China’s leading institution in permafrost research is part of the Northwestern Institute of Ecology and Natural Resources (the Chinese Academy of Sciences). The center has conducted eight joint projects funded by Russia and China.