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Western Siberia (western + siberia)
Selected AbstractsThe influence of seasonal climatic parameters on the permafrost thermal regime, West Siberia, RussiaPERMAFROST AND PERIGLACIAL PROCESSES, Issue 1 2009Valeria V. Popova Abstract Statistical correlations between seasonal air temperatures and snow depths and active layer depths and permafrost temperatures were analysed for tundra (Marre-Salle) and northern taiga (Nadym) sites in Western Siberia. Interannual variations in active layer depth in the tundra zone correlated with the average air temperature of the current summer, and in peatland and humid tundra, also with summer temperatures of the preceding 1,2 years. In the northern taiga zone, the active layer depth related to current summer air temperature and to a lesser extent, to spring and/or winter air temperatures. Variations in summer permafrost temperatures at 5,10,m depth were correlated with spring air temperatures in the current and preceding 1,2 years. The weather regime during the preceding 1,2 years, therefore, reinforced or weakened ground temperature variations in a given year. Overall, the most important factors influencing the permafrost regime were spring and summer air temperatures, and in one case snow depth. However, statistical links between meteorological and permafrost parameters varied between the tundra and northern taiga zones and among landscape types within each zone, emphasising the importance of analyses at short temporal scales and for individual terrain units. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The thermal regime of soils in the north of Western SiberiaPERMAFROST AND PERIGLACIAL PROCESSES, Issue 1 2002A. V. Pavlov Abstract The results of long-term stationary observations upon the thermal regime of soils in natural and anthropogenically-disturbed tundra and northern taiga landscapes in the north of Western Siberia are discussed. Quantitative assessments of the heating effect of snow cover and the cooling effect of surface organic layer on soil temperatures in both winter and summer seasons are given. Spatial and temporal variations in the depth of seasonal thaw and soil temperatures in the tundra and taiga zones are outlined. Data on changes in soil temperature regimes following disturbance of surface organic layers are presented. Contemporary tendencies in permafrost degradation induced by climatic warming, changes in the snow cover depth, and anthropogenic impacts are shown. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Drug injecting and syringe use in the HIV risk environment of Russian penitentiary institutions: qualitative studyADDICTION, Issue 12 2006Anya Sarang ABSTRACT Background Evidence highlights the prison as a high risk environment in relation to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmsission associated with injecting drug use. Methods We undertook qualitative studies among 209 injecting drug users (IDUs) in three Russian cities: Moscow (n = 56), Volgograd (n = 83) and Barnaul in western Siberia (n = 70). Results Over three-quarters (77%) reported experience of police arrest related to their drug use, and 35% (55% of men) a history of imprisonment or detention. Findings emphasize the critical role that penitentiary institutions may play as a structural factor in the diffusion of HIV associated with drug injection in the Russian Federation. While drugs were perceived to be generally available in penitentiary institutions, sterile injection equipment was scarce and as a consequence routinely shared, including within large groups. Attempts to clean borrowed needles or syringes were inadequate, and risk reduction was severely constrained by a combination of lack of injecting equipment availability and punishment for its possession. Perceptions of relative safety were also found to be associated with assumptions of HIV negativity, resulting from a perception that all prisoners are HIV tested upon entry with those found HIV positive segregated. Conclusion This study shows an urgent need for HIV prevention interventions in the Russian penitentiary system. [source] Precipitation and atmospheric circulation patterns at mid-latitudes of AsiaINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY, Issue 5 2001Elena M. Aizen Abstract Analyses of the coupling between large-scale atmospheric patterns and modifications of regional precipitation regimes at seasonal and annual time scales in different terrain of mid-latitudes in Asia, including western Siberia, Tien Shan and Pamir mountains, and plains of middle Asia and Japanese Islands, were examined based on data from 57 and 88 hydro-climatic stations with 100 and 60 year records, respectively. For the past 100 years, a positive trend in precipitation was revealed in western Siberia, northern regions of Tien Shan and Japanese Islands. North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and West Pacific Oscillation (WPO) indices have inverse associations, with average amount of precipitation in western Siberia and in mountains and plains of middle Asia, and positive correlation in central and western regions of Japanese Islands. The Pacific North American (PNA) index is positively correlated with annual precipitation over most of the Japanese Islands. Northern Asian (NA) positive anomalies lead to decrease in winter precipitation in the western and eastern regions of Japanese Islands. We did not find significant impact of PNA or NA on precipitation in middle Asia. We suggest that during the last century, impacts of the western jet stream increased in the northern regions of Tien Shan and Japanese Islands, and weakened in the eastern Japanese Islands. There is a suggestion that conditions are more favourable for precipitation development over continental regions of Asia when the Siberian High is positioned further to the east than further to the west. During dominant development of a zonal atmospheric pattern, the annual and seasonal precipitation decreased over most regions in continental Asia and central Japan. Copyright © 2001 Royal Meteorological Society [source] Contrasts in the Quaternary of mid-North America and mid-Eurasia: notes on Quaternary landscapes of western Siberia,JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE, Issue 7-8 2005H. E. Wright Abstract The West Siberian Plain was formed by marine deposits that extended from the Mediterranean basin to the arctic. Tectonic action later produced a striking series of long straight NE,SW grabens in the southern part of the plain. Pleistocene advance of the Kara ice sheet onto the continent resulted in blockage of the Ob and Yenisey rivers to form huge proglacial lakes that drained through these grabens south via the Turgay Pass and the Aral, Caspian, Black and Mediterranean seas to the North Atlantic Ocean, but during the Last Glacial Maximum (late Weichselian, isotope stage 2), the Kara ice sheet did not advance onto the continent in northwestern Siberia. The Altai Mountains, which bound the West Siberian Plain on the south, contained large deep intermontane ice-dammed lakes, which drained catastrophically when the ice dams broke, forming giant ripples on the basin floors. Pollen studies of glacial lakes indicate that the Lateglacial steppe vegetation and dry climatic conditions continued into the early Holocene as summer insolation maintained high levels. Permafrost development on a drained lake floor in the western Altai Mountains resulted in the formation of groups of small pingos. In North America the growth and wastage of the huge Laurentide ice sheet had an indirect role in the climatic history of western Siberia during the Glacial and Lateglacial periods, after which the climate was more affected directly by insolation changes, whereas in North America in the early Holocene the insolation factor was coupled with the climatic effects of the slow wastage of the ice sheet, and the time of maximum dryness was postponed until the mid-Holocene. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Phytoplankton below the ice cover in Lake Teletskoye, a deep oligotrophic lake in western SiberiaLAKES & RESERVOIRS: RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2007Elena Y. Mitrofanova Abstract The composition, biomass and pigments of the phytoplankton population below the ice cover in Lake Teletskoye were investigated in March 2006. It was found that the composition and biomass of phytoplankton below the ice remained the same throughout the year. Furthermore, the stability of the water column was more important for the development of the phytoplankton assemblage below the ice than was the water temperature and light intensity. Small flagellates and diatoms were abundant among the algae in the upper layers of the lake's water column. Lake Teletskoye is similar in its phytoplankton composition and algal distribution throughout the water column to large, deep temperate lakes and Arctic or Antarctic lakes covered temporally or perennially by ice. [source] The prevalence, cost and basis of food allergy across EuropeALLERGY, Issue 7 2007E. N. C. Mills The development of effective management strategies to optimize the quality of life for allergic patients is currently hampered by a lack of good quality information. Estimates of how many individuals suffer from food allergy and the major foods involved vary widely and inadequacies of in vitro diagnostics make food challenges the only reliable means of diagnosis in many instances. The EuroPrevall project brings together a multidisciplinary partnership to address these issues. Cohorts spanning the main climatic regions of Europe are being developed in infants through a birth cohort, community surveys in school-age children and adults and an outpatient clinic study. Confirmatory double-blind placebo-controlled food challenge diagnosis is being undertaken using foods as they are eaten with titrated doses to allow no-effect and lowest-observable effect levels for allergenic foods to be determined. The cohorts will also facilitate validation of novel in vitro diagnostics through the development of the EuroPrevall Serum Bank. Complementary studies in Ghana, western Siberia, India and China will allow us to gain insights into how different dietary patterns and exposure to microorganisms affect food allergies. New instruments to assess the socioeconomic impact of food allergy are being developed in the project and their application in the clinical cohorts will allow, for the first time, an assessment to be made of the burden this disease places on allergy sufferers and their communities. [source] | ||||||||||||||||