NAUKA 0+: Altai State University geographers are concerned about the problem of global climate change

17 September 2020 Department of Information and Media Communications
On September 21, at Altai State University, the intra-university platform of the NAUKA 0+ science festival will start working, which this year, like most of the earlier public events, are organized in a remote format.

Each institute of the flagship university of Altai Krai has prepared a special program for this event, consisting of video lectures, online master classes, video tours and other events that are available for viewing to everyone interested not only in the most remote regions of our big country, but also abroad.

A number of informative video lectures on topical issues for today were prepared by the Institute of Geography of Altai State University. One of them is dedicated to the climate.

A well-known climatologist, Associate Professor of the Department of Physical Geography and Geoinformation Systems of the Institute of Geography of Altai State University, Candidate of Geographical Sciences Natalya Kharlamova, as part of the lecture, will talk about what the climate used to be on our planet, what it is now and what awaits us in the future.

"The climate in Altai Krai, as in Russia and throughout the planet, is changing. Climatologists have been talking about this for many years, but, unfortunately, they do not believe us! The calculations of scientists about, for example, an increase in temperature by one degree or more, leading officials and managers have always treated with distrust. In fact, we see that the rate of climate change is significantly higher than those assumptions, those calculations, which we announced seven years ago. This directly applies to our region. There is no need to be skeptical about the forecasts of climatologists, we need to adapt to what is happening and develop so-called adaptation measures",  emphasizes the scientist of Altai State University, announcing the lecture, which will be available for viewing from 21 to 30 September on the official website of the flagship university of Altai Krai.

In 2006-2009, scientists, analyzing the indices of fire in the Altai-Sayan ecoregion, associated with climatic indicators, predicted the occurrence of forest fires. But, unfortunately, the predictions of climatologists were taken skeptically, but they were confirmed.

"Adaptation measures for the agrarian sector of Altai Krai are, for example, the use of drought-resistant varieties of agricultural crops or adapted to high humidity, taking into account the climate and territory, says the climatologist of Altai State University. “Climatic anomalies occured on Earth thousands of years ago. But then people, apparently, did not realize this, and now we are approaching these changes more consciously, understanding how this can affect our lives".

The frequency of occurrence of extreme climatic processes is increasing: 2003, 2010, 2013, 2014, etc. Earlier, according to Natalya Kharlamova, this happened less often. Therefore, the world community needs to pay more attention to the problem of global climate change, especially since scientists do not have reasoned accumulated knowledge about how quickly the process of climate change can develop on Earth.

"Every inhabitant of our planet needs to be more careful with the world around him. We will not be able to fly away to another planet, we have to live here, and we must save the Earth for other generations. Much also depends on the leaders of states, on the authorities at different levels, which should already face the problem of climate change. It's time to take more decisive steps towards solving this issue!”  Natalya Kharlamova summed up.

It remains to add that recently, specialists of Altai State University have installed six automatic weather stations on the territory of the region, thanks to which it became possible to obtain new data on the regional features of climatic variability.

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