What will the climate be like in the next 10 years. Climate change: what awaits Russia. About new deserts and disappearing countries

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In the near future, Russia is facing a shift in climatic zones, scientists promise. This will entail a whole series of changes, the beginning of which the inhabitants of the country can already observe.

The constancy of the climate depends on two factors: the flux of solar radiation and the inclination of the planet's axis of rotation to the orbital plane. This allows you to build forecasts for a specific region based on the available data. The displacement of zones also entails metamorphoses in flora and fauna.

The increase in the number of ticks, for example, is directly related to warm winters and early onset of spring. According to WWF, in the next decade, insects will become even larger, and the habitat will expand - low temperatures are destructive for them, but warming makes it possible to endure the winter without risk.

The permafrost area will gradually shrink, and the fertile land will increase, experts say. Over the past decades, the permafrost border has receded by almost 80 kilometers and areas of seasonal thawing have appeared, according to the report of the Ministry of Emergencies. Considering that a large area of ​​the Russian Federation is occupied by uninhabited land, this will have positive consequences for agriculture for some time. True, there will be more inclement weather events. Aridity in the southern regions can lead to a decrease in the yield of grain farms, and rainstorms and hail - damage to fruit crops.

The study of the Arctic shelf showed that within 10 years a large release of hydrates into the atmosphere can occur, which will accelerate the processes associated with global warming. All over the world, an increase in the average daily temperature in winter is predicted, and Russia will also be no exception.

Forecasters promised warming of two to three degrees in the next few years throughout the territory, but the winter of 2017 was the coldest in the last half century. In the Hydrometeorological Center, this is explained by the typical waveform of the climate for strong changes. Most likely, Russia will face an alternation of rainy and dry periods, frosts in summer and abnormally high temperatures in winter. The warming will be most noticeable in Siberia and subarctic regions. Despite this, paradoxically, there will be more snow on the planet. This is due to the growth of moisture-containing air masses.

But the inhabitants of the European part of Russia will least of all feel the climate change in the next 10 years, but in half a century a climate typical for forest-steppe can be established here: with dry summers and warm winters.

You won't surprise anyone with stories of global warming - most experts agree that in the future, average daily temperatures will increase, and heavy rains will become even stronger. Of course, there are specialists who do not support this point of view, but compared to the total mass, their percentage is very small. In our world, there is no such technique that could predict the weather with an accuracy of 100 percent. Computer calculations depend on the data loaded into it, and scientists do not know enough about the formation of the climate, therefore, even the most probable forecasts from the point of view of formulas may turn out to be unsuccessful due to the vagaries of nature.

Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences B. LUCHKOV, professor at MEPhI.

The sun is an ordinary star that does not stand out for its properties and position from the myriad of stars in the Milky Way. in luminosity, size, mass, it is a typical average peasant. It occupies the same middle place in the Galaxy: not close to the center, not at the edge, but in the middle, both along the thickness of the disk and along the radius (8 kiloparsecs from the galactic nucleus). The only, one must think, difference from most stars is that on the third planet of the vast economy of the Galaxy, life arose 3 billion years ago and, having undergone a number of changes, survived, giving rise to a thinking creature homo sapiens on the evolutionary path. a seeker and inquisitive person, having settled the whole earth, is now engaged in the study of the world around him in order to know the “what”, “how” and “why”. What, for example, determines the earth's climate, how is the earth's weather formed and why does it change so dramatically and sometimes unpredictably? It seems that well-grounded answers have been received for these questions long ago. and over the past half century, thanks to global studies of the atmosphere and the ocean, an extensive meteorological service has been created, without which no housewife going to the market, no airplane pilot, no climber, no plowman, no fisherman - positively anyone can do without reports. it’s just noticed that sometimes forecasts fall into a mess, and then the hostesses, pilots, climbers, not to mention the plowmen and fishermen, vilify the meteorological service for nothing. This means that not everything is still completely clear in the weather cuisine, and it would be necessary to carefully understand the complex synoptic phenomena and connections. One of the main ones is the earth-sun connection, which gives us warmth and light, but from which sometimes, like from a pandora's box, hurricanes, droughts, floods and other extreme “weather” break free. what gives rise to these "dark forces" of the Earth's climate, in general, quite pleasant in comparison with what is happening on other planets?

The years to come are lurking in the darkness.
A. Pushkin

CLIMATE AND WEATHER

The Earth's climate is determined by two main factors: the solar constant and the inclination of the Earth's axis of rotation to the plane of the orbit. Solar constant - the flux of solar radiation coming to the Earth, 1.4 . 10 3 W / m 2 - really unchanged with a high accuracy (up to 0.1%) both on short (seasons, years) and long (centuries, millions of years) scales. The reason for this is the constancy of solar luminosity L = 4 . 10 26 W, determined by thermonuclear “combustion” of hydrogen in the center of the Sun, and the almost circular orbit of the Earth (R= 1,5 . 10 11 m). The "middle" position of the luminary makes its temperament surprisingly bearable - no changes in the luminosity and flux of solar radiation, no changes in the temperature of the photosphere. Calm, balanced star. And the Earth's climate is therefore strictly defined - hot in the equatorial zone, where the sun is almost every day at its zenith, moderately warm in the middle latitudes and cold near the poles, where it barely protrudes from the horizon.

The weather is another matter. In each latitudinal zone, it manifests itself as a certain deviation from the set climatic standard. There is also a thaw in winter and buds swell on the trees. It happens, and at the height of summer bad weather will come with a piercing autumn wind, and sometimes snowfall. Weather is a concrete realization of the climate of a given latitude with possible (recently very frequent) deviations-anomalies.

MODEL PREDICTIONS

Weather anomalies are very harmful and cause enormous damage. Floods, droughts, severe winters destroyed agriculture, led to hunger and epidemics. Storms, hurricanes, torrential rains also did not spare anything in their path, forcing people to leave the devastated places. The victims of weather anomalies are innumerable. It is impossible to pacify the weather, to mitigate its extreme manifestations. The energy of weather disruptions is not subject to even now, in the energetically developed time, when gas, oil, uranium gave us great power over nature. The energy of a hurricane of an average hand (10 17 J) is equal to the total output of all power plants in the world in three hours. Failed attempts to stop the impending bad weather were made in the last century. In the 1980s, the US Air Force carried out a frontal attack on hurricanes (Operation Stormrage), but showed only its complete impotence (Science and Life No.).

Yet science and technology have been able to help. If it is impossible to contain the blows of the enraged elements, then perhaps it will be possible at least to foresee them in order to take timely measures. They began to develop, especially successfully with the introduction of modern computers, models of weather development. The most powerful computers, the most sophisticated computational programs now belong to the forecasters and the military. The results were not slow to show.

By the end of the last century, calculations based on synoptic models reached such a level of perfection that they began to describe well the processes occurring in the ocean (the main factor of earth's weather), on land, in the atmosphere, including its lower layer, the troposphere, - the weather factory. A very decent agreement was reached between the calculation of the main weather factors (air temperature, the content of СО 2 and other “greenhouse” gases, heating of the surface layer of the ocean) with real measurements. Above are graphs of calculated and measured temperature anomalies over a century and a half.

You can trust such models - they have become a working tool for weather forecasting. Weather anomalies (their strength, location, moment of appearance), it turns out, can be predicted. This means that there is time and opportunity to prepare for the blows of the elements. Forecasts have become commonplace, and the damage caused by weather anomalies has dropped dramatically.

A special place was taken by long-term forecasts, for tens and hundreds of years, as a guide to action for economists, politicians, heads of production - the “captains” of the modern world. Several long-term forecasts for the 21st century are now known.

WHAT IS THE CENTURY PREPARING FOR US?

The forecast for such a long period, of course, can only be approximate. Weather parameters are presented with significant tolerances (error intervals, as is customary in mathematical statistics). To take into account all the possibilities of the future, a number of development scenarios are played out. The Earth's climate system is too unstable, even the best models, tested by tests of past years, can make mistakes when looking into the distant future.

The algorithms for the calculations are based on two opposite assumptions: 1) a gradual change in weather factors (optimistic option), 2) their sharp jump, leading to noticeable climate changes (pessimistic option).

The Prediction of Gradual Climate Change for the 21st Century (“Report of the Working Group of the Intergovernmental Commission on Climate Change,” Shanghai, January 2001) presents the results of seven model scenarios. The main conclusion is that the warming of the Earth, which covered the entire last century, will continue further, accompanied by an increase in the emission of "greenhouse gases" (mainly CO 2 and SO 2), an increase in the surface air temperature (by 2-6 ° C by the end of the new century) and sea ​​level rise (on average by 0.5 m per century). Some scenarios give a decline in greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the century as a result of the ban on industrial emissions into the atmosphere; their concentration will not differ much from the current level. The most likely changes in weather factors are: higher maximum temperatures and more hot days, lower minimum temperatures and fewer frosty days in almost all terrestrial regions, reduced temperature spread, more intense precipitation. Potential climate changes - more summer dry forests with a noticeable risk of droughts, stronger winds and more intense tropical cyclones.

The past five years, filled with strong anomalies (terrible North Atlantic hurricanes, Pacific typhoons not lagging behind them, the harsh winter of 2006 in the Northern Hemisphere and other weather surprises), show that the new century, apparently, did not take an optimistic path. Of course, the century has just begun, deviations from the predicted gradual development may be smoothed out, but its “stormy beginning” gives reason to doubt the first option.

SCENARIO OF THE EXTREME CLIMATE CHANGE OF THE XXI CENTURY (P. SCHWARTZ, D. RANDELL, OCTOBER 2003)

This is not just a forecast, it is a shake-up - an alarm signal for the “captains” of the world, calmed by the gradual climate change: it can always be corrected with small means (protocols-conversations) in the right direction, and there is no need to be afraid that the situation will get out of control. The new forecast is based on the emerging trend of growth of extreme natural anomalies. It is believed that it is starting to come true. The world has followed a pessimistic path.

The first decade (2000-2010) is a continuation of gradual warming, which has not yet caused much alarm, but nevertheless with a noticeable rate of acceleration. North America, Europe, partly South Africa will have 30% more warm and less frosty days, the number and intensity of weather anomalies (floods, droughts, hurricanes) that hit agriculture will increase. Nevertheless, such weather cannot be considered particularly harsh, threatening the world order.

But by 2010 there will be such a number of dangerous changes that will lead to a sharp jump in the climate in a completely unforeseen (according to the gradual scenario) direction. The hydrological cycle (evaporation, precipitation, water leaks) will accelerate, further increasing the average air temperature. Water vapor is a powerful natural “greenhouse gas”. Due to the increase in the average surface temperature, forests and pastures will dry up, and massive forest fires will begin (it is already clear how difficult it is to fight them). The concentration of CO 2 will increase so much that the usual uptake by ocean water and land plants, which determined the rate of "gradual change", will cease to work. The greenhouse effect will accelerate. Abundant melting of snow will begin in the mountains, in the subpolar tundra, the area of ​​polar ice will sharply decrease, which will greatly reduce the solar albedo. The air and land temperature rises dramatically. Strong winds due to the large temperature gradient cause sandstorms and weathering of the soil. There is no control over the elements and the ability to correct it even a little. The pace of dramatic climate change is picking up speed. The trouble is all over the world.

At the beginning of the second decade, the thermoclinic circulation in the ocean will slow down, and he is the main creator of the weather. Due to the abundance of rain and the melting of polar ice caps, the oceans will become fresher. The usual transfer of warm waters from the equator to mid-latitudes will be suspended.

The Gulf Stream, the warm Atlantic current along North America to Europe, the guarantor of the temperate climate of the Northern Hemisphere, will freeze. Warming in this region will be replaced by a sharp cooling and a decrease in precipitation. In just a few years, the vector of weather changes will turn 180 degrees, the climate will become cold and dry.

At this point, computer models do not give an unambiguous answer: what will actually happen? Will the climate of the Northern Hemisphere become colder and drier, which will not yet lead to a global catastrophe, or will there come a new ice age lasting hundreds of years, as happened on Earth more than once and not so long ago (Little Ice Age, Event-8200, Early Triassic - 12,700 years ago).

The worst case that can actually happen is this. Devastating droughts in food-producing regions with high population densities (North America, Europe, China). Decrease in precipitation, drying up of rivers, depletion of fresh water reserves. Reduced food supplies, massive famine, spread of epidemics, population flight from disaster zones. Rising international tension, wars over food sources, drinking and energy resources. At the same time, in areas of traditionally dry climate (Asia, South America, Australia) - torrential rains, floods, destruction of agricultural land, not adapted to such an abundance of moisture. And here, too, a decline in agriculture, a shortage of food. Collapse of the modern world structure. A sharp, by billions, population decline. Waste of civilization for centuries, the arrival of cruel rulers, religious wars, the collapse of science, culture, morality. Armageddon as predicted!

A dramatic, unexpected climate change to which the world simply cannot adapt.

The conclusion of the script is disappointing: urgent measures must be taken, and which ones are unclear. Absorbed by carnivals, championships, thoughtless shows, the enlightened world, which could "undertake something", simply pays no attention to it: "Scientists are scared, but we are not afraid!"

SOLAR ACTIVITY AND TERRESTRIAL WEATHER

There is, however, a third version of the forecast of the Earth's climate, which agrees with the rampant anomalies at the beginning of the century, but does not lead to a universal catastrophe. It is based on observations of our star, which, with all the apparent calmness, still has noticeable activity.

Solar activity is a manifestation of the outer convective zone, which occupies a third of the solar radius, where, due to the large temperature gradient (from 10 6 K inside to 6 . 10 3 K in the photosphere) hot plasma escapes outward in “boiling streams” generating local magnetic fields with an intensity thousands of times greater than the total field of the Sun. All the observed features of activity are due to processes in the convective zone. Granulation of the photosphere, hot areas (torches), ascending prominences (arcs of matter lifted by magnetic field lines), dark spots and groups of spots - tubes of local magnetic fields, chromospheric flares (the result of the rapid closure of opposite magnetic fluxes, which converts the supply of magnetic energy into the energy of accelerated particles and plasma heating). Into this tangle of phenomena on the visible disk of the Sun, a shining solar corona is interwoven (the upper, very rarefied atmosphere heated to millions of degrees, the source of the solar wind). Coronal condensations and holes observed in X-rays and mass ejections from the corona (coronal mass ejections, CMEs) play a significant role in solar activity. The manifestations of solar activity are numerous and varied.

The most indicative, accepted index of activity is the Wolf number W, introduced in the 19th century, indicating the number of dark spots and their groups on the solar disk. The face of the Sun is covered with a changing speck of freckles, which indicates the inconstancy of its activity. On c. 27 below is a graph of annual averages W (t), obtained by direct monitoring of the Sun (the last century and a half) and restored from separate observations until 1600 (the sun was not then under "constant supervision"). Rise and fall of the number of spots are visible - cycles of activity. One cycle lasts on average 11 years (more precisely, 10.8 years), but there is a noticeable scatter (from 7 to 17 years), the variability is not strictly periodic. Harmonic analysis also reveals the second variability - secular, the period of which, also not strictly maintained, is equal to ~ 100 years. On the graph, it manifests itself clearly - with such a period the amplitude of solar cycles Wmax changes. In the middle of each century, the amplitude reached the highest values ​​(Wmax ~ 150-200), at the turn of the century it decreased to Wmax = 50-80 (at the beginning of the 19th and 20th centuries) and even to an extremely low level (the beginning of the 18th century). During a long time interval called the Maunder minimum (1640-1720), no cyclicality was observed and the number of spots on the disk was counted in units. The Maunder phenomenon, observed in other stars, in terms of luminosity and spectral type close to the Sun, is an incompletely understood mechanism for the reconstruction of the convective zone of a star, as a result of which the generation of magnetic fields slows down. Deeper "excavations" have shown that similar restructuring on the Sun had happened before: the minimums of Sperer (1420-1530) and Wolf (1280-1340). As you can see, they happen on average after 200 years and last 60-120 years - at this time the Sun seems to fall into a lethargic sleep, resting from active work. Almost 300 years have passed since the Maunder minimum. It's time for the luminary to rest again.

This raises a direct link to the theme of Earth's weather and climate change. The Chronicle of the Maunder Minimum definitely indicates anomalous weather behavior, similar to what is happening today. All of Europe (less likely the entire Northern Hemisphere) experienced remarkably cold winters during this time. The canals froze, as evidenced by the paintings of Dutch masters, the Thames froze, and it became a custom for Londoners to arrange festivities on the ice of the river. Even the North Sea, warmed by the Gulf Stream, was ice-bound, as a result of which navigation was terminated. During these years, practically no auroras were observed, which indicates a decrease in the intensity of the solar wind. The breath of the Sun, as happens during sleep, weakened, and this is what led to climate change. The weather became cold, windy, capricious.

SUN BREATH

How, by what means, is solar activity transmitted to the Earth? There must be some kind of tangible media carrying out the transfer. There can be several such “carriers”: the hard part of the solar radiation spectrum (ultraviolet, X-ray), solar wind, emissions of matter during solar flares, CME. The results of observations of the Sun in the 23rd cycle (1996-2006) carried out by the SOHO, TRACE (USA, Europe), CORONAS-F (Russia) spacecraft showed that the CME is the main “carriers” of solar influence. They primarily determine the earth's weather, and all the other "carriers" complete the picture (see "Science and Life" No.).

CMEs began to be studied in detail only recently, realizing their leading role in solar-terrestrial communications, although they have been noticed since the 1970s. In terms of emission frequency, mass and energy, they surpass all other "carriers". With a mass of 1-10 billion tons and a speed (1-3 . 10 km / s, these plasma clouds have a kinetic energy of ~ 10 25 J. When they reach the Earth in a few days, they exert a strong effect first on the Earth's magnetosphere, and through it on the upper atmosphere. The mechanism of action is now well understood. The Soviet geophysicist A.L. Chizhevsky guessed about it 50 years ago, in general terms it was understood by E.R.Mustel and his colleagues (1980s). Finally, today it has been proven by observations from American and European satellites. The orbital station SOHO, which has been conducting continuous observations for 10 years, has registered about 1500 CMEs. The satellites SAMPEX and POLAR noted the appearance of emissions from the Earth and traced the result of the impact.

In general terms, the impact of CME on Earth's weather is now well known. Having reached the vicinity of the planet, the expanded magnetic cloud flows around the Earth's magnetosphere along the boundary (magnetopause), since the magnetic field does not let the charged plasma particles inside. The impact of a cloud on the magnetosphere generates fluctuations in the magnetic field, which manifests itself as a magnetic storm. The magnetosphere is compressed by the flowing stream of solar plasma, the concentration of lines of force increases, and at some point in the development of the storm, their reconnection occurs (similar to that which generates flares on the Sun, but on a much smaller spatial and energy scale). The released magnetic energy is used to accelerate the particles of the radiation belt (electrons, positrons, protons of relatively low energies), which, having acquired an energy of tens and hundreds of MeV, can no longer be held by the Earth's magnetic field. A stream of accelerated particles precipitates into the atmosphere along the geomagnetic equator. Interacting with the atoms of the atmosphere, charged particles transfer their energy to them. A new "energy source" appears, affecting the upper atmosphere, and through its instability to vertical displacements - and the lower layers, including the troposphere. This “source” associated with solar activity “shakes” the weather, creating cloud clusters, cyclones and storms. The main result of his intervention is the destabilization of the weather: calm gives way to storm, dry land - heavy rainfall, rains - drought. It is noteworthy that all weather changes begin near the equator: tropical cyclones that develop into hurricanes, variable monsoons, the mysterious El Niño (“Child”), a worldwide weather disturber that suddenly appears in the east of the Pacific Ocean and just as suddenly disappears.

According to the “solar scenario” of weather anomalies, the forecast for the 21st century is more calm. The Earth's climate will change slightly, but the weather regime will undergo a noticeable shift, as it always did when solar activity fades. It may not be very strong (colder than usual winter months and rainy summer months) if solar activity drops to Wmax ~ 50, as it was at the beginning of the 19th and 20th centuries. It can become more serious (cooling of the climate of the entire Northern Hemisphere) if a new Maunder minimum (Wmax< 10). В любом случае похолодание климата будет не кратковременным, а продолжится, вместе с аномалиями погоды, несколько десятилетий.

What awaits us in the near future will be shown by the 24th cycle, which is now beginning. With a high probability, based on an analysis of solar activity over 400 years, its amplitude Wmax will become even smaller, and solar respiration is even weaker. We need to monitor coronal mass ejections. Their number, pace, sequence will determine the weather at the beginning of the 21st century. And, of course, it is absolutely necessary to understand what happens to your beloved star when her activity stops. This is not only a scientific task - in the physics of the Sun, astrophysics, geophysics. Its solution is fundamentally necessary to clarify the conditions for the preservation of life on Earth.

Literature

Summary for Policymakers, A Report of Working Group I of IPCC (Shanghai, January 2001), Internet.

Schwartz R., Randall D. An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario (October 2003), Internet.

Budyko M. Climate. What will it be? // Science and Life, 1979, no. 4.

Luchkov B. Solar Influence on Earth Weather. Scientific session MiFi-2006 // Collection of scientific works, vol. 7, p. 79.

Moiseev N. The future of the planet and system analysis // Science and Life, 1974, No. 4.

Nikolaev G. Climate at a turning point // Science and Life, 1995, no. 6.

After the last autumn left the inhabitants of the European part of Russia without Indian summer and the opportunity to put on thin raincoats and jackets, “Kommersant-Lifestyle” met with climatologist Vladimir Klimenko to find out what is happening with the global climate, what things we will have to buy in the future and we can are we going to vacation in the Maldives in 50 years.

The last 15 years have been, on average, the warmest in the world on record. And 2015 and 2016 are absolutely unbearably hot. Remembering the cold autumn of this year, this is hard to believe. Nevertheless, scientific studies prove that global warming is coming rapidly and threatens all of us not only with unusual weather.

Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head of the laboratory of global energy problems at MPEI, and previously an employee of Oxford, Bonn and other universities, climatologist Vladimir Klimenko makes an appointment at 11 am. We have no more than an hour to talk about the weather. Half-jokingly, Klimenko notes that Russia is a “chosen” country and, due to its geographic location, is doomed to suffer.

Climate change in Russia

Photo: still from the film "The Barber of Siberia" (1998)

Russia is one of those countries that will experience climate change the most. This is due to its geographic location and complex climatic system. Russia's misfortune is that it is a “marginal” country in the broadest sense of the word. Marginal means marginal. Russia is located on the outskirts of Eurasia, the northeastern periphery. Therefore, any global changes in our country respond with two- and three-fold amplification. Over the past 120 years, the Earth's climate as a whole has warmed by about one degree. The climate of Moscow, for example, has warmed by almost 3.5 degrees during the same time. At the same time, only scientists are engaged in climate problems in Russia, and the public, at best, remains silent. This is a paradox.

About the global climate

2015 is the warmest year in the history of instrumental observations (all over the world they have been in sufficient volume since 1850, in Moscow since 1777. - "B"). 2016 is expected to break this record. The 21st century is leading in terms of temperature peaks: 80% of temperature records were recorded in the period from 2000 to 2015. But the temperature minima were left far behind - in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Winter warms faster than other seasons. In second place is spring, then summer and autumn. September in Moscow has warmed by less than a degree over the past 50 years.

About Russian winters

We will never see the famous Russian winters with bitter frosts. Unless, of course, the Earth collides with an asteroid or a nuclear war occurs. We have been living in the conditions of the so-called European winter for the last 20 years. Winter is considered cold if the average winter temperature deviates from the norm by more than two degrees. For example, the winter of 1941, which halted the German advance, was 7.5 degrees below normal. (Normal - when the average temperature over the three winter months is -7.7 ° C. - "B".)

In recent years, the average winter temperature has fluctuated between –5… –6 ° C. Therefore, over time, you can forget about fur hats and heavy sheepskin coats or fur coats. They are more likely to be decorative. It will be possible to winter comfortably in insulated jackets. At least for the inhabitants of the middle lane for sure. Winter shoes can easily be replaced by autumn ones. In 30 years, we will dress the way they dress in Europe today.

About summer

Photo: still from the movie "Mirror" (1975)

As I said, Russia is an extremely difficult country in terms of climate. Each region is unique in its own way. For example, the climate of Moscow and the Moscow region is gradually humidifying. The amount of precipitation has increased. And their number, including in the summer, will only increase. The nature of precipitation will also change - mostly destructive downpours. A large number of rainstorms, similar to tropical ones, are now the norm for the modern climate of Moscow and the region. The rains will be accompanied by gusty winds and thunderstorms. The past summer is a vivid confirmation of this. Muscovites should stock up on taller rubber boots and raincoats.

About off-season

I can say for sure: the offseason has not disappeared. People are very unobservant, at best they remember the previous season. The last autumn seemed cold to Muscovites only because the previous 12 years were very warm. In fact, the past autumn was not anomalous despite all the idle talk. The average autumn temperature was below the norm by only 0.5 degrees. This is a very minor deviation.

Snow in April for Russia is more of a pattern. Even 30 years ago, people were not surprised by frost and snow in May. The number of such phenomena in the warm epochs that we are now experiencing is rapidly falling. There will be fewer and fewer cold extremes every year.

The last severe frosts in May were in 1999. Then the average temperature of the last month of spring was only + 8.7 ° C, which is four degrees below the climatic norm. April of that year was warmer than May. This is really a very rare occurrence.

About Moscow

Photo: still from the film "Three Poplars on Plyushchikha" (1968)

In such a huge city like Moscow, the temperature in different areas can differ by 12 degrees. The warmest place in Moscow is Balchug. The average annual temperature there is one degree higher than on the outskirts. The temperature is influenced by the topography of the city, and even the nature of the buildings. The east, for example, is colder than the west of the capital. The north is, accordingly, colder than the south.

Moscow is virtually moving southwestward. Not only Moscow, but the whole of Russia in terms of climatic indicators "moves" to Europe. In my opinion, at the end of this century, the climate of Moscow will be equal to the modern climate of Berlin and Vienna. And in the 2040s it will already be similar to the modern climate of Warsaw.

About new deserts and disappearing countries

Due to global warming, new deserts are indeed forming. There are good reasons to believe that the Sahara will expand in a southern, southeastern direction. In the risk zone Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, the Arabian Peninsula.

But, on the other hand, there are places on Earth where deserts can turn into semi-deserts, savannas or steppes. In particular, these are northwestern India, the border with Pakistan, western regions of China, Mongolia in its western and southwestern parts.

In general, the amount of precipitation in the world is increasing. But this increase is extremely uneven. In some regions, there has been practically no rain for many years. These lands are becoming uninhabitable. The UN even coined the term "climate refugee". Several dozen people have been officially granted climate refugee status.

It is likely that changes in the above regions will occur rapidly. Therefore, it is better not to put off travel to these countries indefinitely.

About the oceans and melting ice

Photo: still from the movie "Before the Flood" (2016)

The ocean level rises by 3.3 mm annually. This is a very high speed. For comparison: in the XX century it was 1.5 mm. By the end of the century, the level will rise by at least 50-60 cm. This is in terms of the global average. But, for example, there are regions where the lifting speed is three times the aforementioned 3 mm. This is bad news. Especially for poor countries. Some of them will simply drown. For example, the Maldives, which already now barely rise above the surface of the water, rapidly plunging into the ocean. Within a century, we will lose this piece of paradise.

Russia is also in danger. We have 30 thousand km of coastline in the Arctic zone, where there is not a single dam and will never be due to the harsh climate and extremely rare population. As a result of the melting ice of the Arctic Ocean, due to coastal erosion and increased storm activity, we lose several hundred square kilometers of coastal territory every year.

But the Netherlands, Northern Germany or Belgium will never go under water. These are developed countries, their coasts are protected by dams, which are designed to withstand many meters of sea level rise.

About destructive volcanoes

Another threat to the climate is volcanoes. The most dangerous of them are Yellowstone in the USA, the supervolcano in the Phlegrean fields in Italy and the one on the banks of the Rhine in Germany. Sooner or later, they will definitely explode. But, despite the fact that they are covered with sensors, it is impossible to calculate the exact time. The range is wide: from several years to several centuries. For the climate, volcanoes are dangerous with sulfur aerosols, which are always contained in the products of volcanic eruptions. The power of the eruption of supervolcanoes is so great that sulfur particles can easily reach the stratosphere. If this happens, the entire globe will be enveloped in smog for several years, like the one that stood in Moscow in the summer of 2010, and this will lead to the death of millions of people.

About global warming and energy sources

The whole world is now concerned with environmental problems and is switching to green energy sources. In Russia, this is a rather sad situation. In the next 20-30 years, energy production from renewable sources will not exceed 2-3%. In Denmark, for example, already 50% of electricity is generated at wind farms. Germany has crossed the 20% mark. By 2050, the European Union plans to extract 95% of its energy from renewable sources.

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Nadezhda Suprun

The weather continues to present surprises. Yes, such that he literally throws them into the heat, then into the cold. On June 1, a blizzard struck Norway and northern Great Britain, for example, paralyzing the life of cities and towns. 39 people trapped in 17 cars were rescued from the snow captivity.

In India, there is another misfortune - the heat is killing thousands of people. In the state of Maharashtra, the thermometer rolls over 47 degrees. Even in the cool foothills of the Himalayas, a temperature of 42 degrees is recorded in the shade. Meteorologists explain natural disasters by global warming and warn that there will be more. In this regard, it is interesting to know how forecasters assess the climate in the future, let's say, in 2050.

Winter is colder, summer is hotter

Today, numerical methods can predict the weather over a two-year period. Calculations of the average temperature with a perspective of 35 years in a number of cases are carried out using the methods of polynomial and optimal interpolation. In the simplest version, it looks like this: they build a graph of temperature changes, say, over the past fifty years, and then continue the line until 2050. Of course, other factors are also taken into account. Based on this, meteorologists argue that in the middle of the 21st century, the average temperature on Earth may increase by 4 degrees Celsius, while honestly admitting that this is not a forecast, but a scenario of potential climate change.

However, it is wrong to think that it will simply get warmer by a few degrees. In reality, new giant deserts may arise - heat accumulators, and regions of abnormal frosts - cold poles. In other words, the climate in different regions of the planet will change in different ways. For example, on the territory of Russia, since 1961, the average temperature has increased most sharply in the middle zone, it has become much warmer in the north, but in the south of the country there is an amazing temperature stability.

With all this, scientists predict new patterns. Victor Budovoy, an expert at the Kaliningrad Center for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, whose long-term forecasts are consistently accurate, says winters will get colder and summer months hotter. In his opinion, this is due to solar activity.

America

In the United States, real "Russian winters" are already being observed. So, in the state of Tennessee, in the southeastern United States, in February 2015, 40-degree frosts were recorded. In Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, temperatures dropped to minus 50 in January. The same picture was observed a year earlier. It got to the point that the American media began to write about the use of climate weapons from the outside.

At the same time, scientists at the University of Utah talk about two weather "clubs" that pound America - about droughts in California, and about polar vortices in the Midwest and East. However, in their opinion, these processes are associated not with the intrigues of the Russians, who are taking revenge for Ukraine, but with global warming, which has changed the nature of such a phenomenon as El Niño. Moreover, we are talking about sustainable climate correction.

The forecasts of scientists and the calculations of financiers are shocking. 35 years from now, the US economy will be in dire straits. Decrease in rainfall in the southeastern states of the United States will affect yields, which will fall by 50-70%. And because of the rise in the level of the world ocean (by 1-2 meters according to the most optimistic estimates) real estate worth $ 106 billion will be flooded. Hurricane activity will at least double, the damage from which will exceed $ 100 billion per year.

Economists do not even undertake to predict the demand for hydrocarbons and for electricity required for heating in winter and air conditioning in summer. There are simply not enough resources on Earth to provide the comfort Americans are accustomed to. All this, of course, will lead to social instability and powerful riots.

Russia

The report "Climate of Conflict", which analyzes the impact of global warming on Russia, speaks of a possible reduction in acreage. However, scientists from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics. Obukhov RAS are confident that in the southern regions of the country, primarily in Kalmykia, Stavropol Territory, Astrakhan and Rostov regions, in the middle of the 21st century, the prevailing winds will blow from the west, and not from the east, as now. As a result, the amount of precipitation will increase, which will have a positive effect on the yield. “It can be argued that as a result of warming in southern Russia, the climate will become milder,” says Nikolay Elansky, scientist from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics. Obukhov. "There will be no temperature drops and abrupt weather changes."

In his opinion, unique favorable conditions will be formed here, although it was previously stated that desertification of the southern regions would occur. But for the north of our country, the consequences of global warming can have the character of a catastrophe. Calculations show that the average temperature in the Arctic and coastal regions will rise 2.5 times faster than worldwide. This will lead to a rapid melting of permafrost and a powerful release of methane due to the decomposition of frozen organic matter. We will have to rebuild Yakutsk, Vorkuta and Tiksi, because in ten years the bearing capacity of the pile foundations will be halved.

Forests in western Siberia are most likely doomed, although this process will only begin in the middle of the century. The state of the ecosystem of Lake Baikal will sharply deteriorate due to the increase in chlorophyll and zooplankton. But ticks will become the real scourge for the population of our country.

Climatic cataclysms

However, if the quality of life in the United States deteriorates, then in Russia the climatic situation is predicted to be tolerable, which cannot be said about 100 states, in which almost 4 billion people live today.

Africa will face bloody climate wars in the Nile region. The fight will be over water resources. Calculations show that as early as 2025, the first military conflicts related to this problem will begin. By the middle of the 21st century, the entire continent will be in chaos. By the way, according to the data experts Klaus Desmet and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, who conducted a computer crash test (for the effects of global warming), the main waves of climate refugees will rush into the United States, the EU, Canada and Russia.

Emigration flows from Africa will bring with them deadly diseases previously unknown to Europeans. For this reason, in Germany, France and England, nationalist forces will come to power, in spirit close to fascism. That is why a scenario is already being considered, according to which the countries located to the west of Egypt will become a giant camp for African settlers. In return, the elite of the Maghreb will receive a lot of money.

Difficulties await Italy and Spain, which are predicted to have no rains. But the western, central and eastern regions of Europe, on the contrary, face extreme floods and snowfalls. The same fate will befall the Ganges delta, which will lead to a local atomic war between India and parched Pakistan. Northern China will become a desert, and the bulk of the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom will concentrate in the south of the PRC, which will turn into a billionth gigapole.

Scandinavia, the Tibetan Highlands, the US West Coast, Patagonia, as well as the Kola Peninsula and the Arctic Ocean coast will be the territory of wildfires. It will be even hotter on the west coast of Australia, on the Brazilian Highlands, in America in the Great Lakes region and in California. These territories have every chance to turn into deserted spaces.