Polar Science最新文献

The Arctic Ocean plays an important role in global climate and global warming through freshwater and heat exchange with subarctic waters. A better understanding of circulation time scales in the Arctic Ocean is essential to predict changes in climate and biogeochemical cycling in the Arctic Ocean. ¹²⁹I and ¹³⁷Cs, which have been discharged from the nuclear fuel-reprocessing facilities, have been employed to determine the time scale of the circulation in the Arctic Ocean. However, its temporal change has not been understood well. In 2017, 2019, and 2020, we measured ¹²⁹I and ¹³⁷Cs in the Canada Basin in the Arctic Ocean. Using our new and historical data, we discuss temporal changes in the circulation in the basin between 1993 and 2020. The tracer ages derived from the ¹²⁹I/¹³⁷Cs ratio indicate that the transport of the Atlantic water into the Canada Basin was accelerated in 2020. This is consistent with results of recent studies that indicated the intensified inflow of the Atlantic water into the eastern Arctic Ocean in the late 2010s, which is termed “atlantification”. Our results confirmed the “atlantification” in the Canada Basin by temporal changes in the transient tracers for the first time.

This paper focuses on the Sakha Republic in the Russian Far East as one of the Arctic regions. Russia's Arctic policy gives priority to improving the living standard and quality of life of Arctic inhabitants. I examine the feasibility of Russia's Arctic policy in the context of economic and social situation in the Sakha Republic and fiscal capacity of local governments, which are responsible for the provision of social public services. The Arctic region is an important ‘donor’ for the Russian economy, which can bring abundant tax revenues to the state budget. However, it has not been considered enough if this wealth contributes to the sustainable development of Arctic societies. This paper provides an overview of Russia's Arctic policy, followed by an analysis of the socio-economic situation in the Sakha Republic after the collapse of the USSR. Then, local public service provision and its finance is analyzed based on the fiscal statistics of the Republic. I conclude that local governments face difficulties in enhancing their public services due to a lack of financial resources and absence of decision-making autonomy, because of centralization in the past decades.

This paper aims to evaluate Russian state policy towards the development of the Northern Sea Route with all the political, economic, and financial challenges that followed the war between Russia and Ukraine after February 2022. Much attention has been paid to the new plan of the development of the Northern Sea Route until 2035, adopted by the Government in August 2022 since this is a strategic document serving as a starting point in the analysis of Russia's long-term goals in the Arctic. The analysis shows that the Russian authorities do not want to downgrade the importance and potential of Arctic development, including the Northern Sea Route, although demand for Russian oil and gas is declining except in China and a few other countries, and Russia is having difficulties acquiring essential technologies from developed countries. The Russian Government appears to be more focused on the domestic purpose of the Northern Sea Route, i.e., maintaining the local economy in the Arctic region, including cabotage transportation (shipping between two Russian ports) and northern supply (severnyi zavoz).

Attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy is a powerful tool for investigating the biochemical fingerprint of plants, but its applicability to tundra plant leaves has yet to be addressed. The present study aimed to apply ATR-FTIR measurement to characterize tundra plant leaves and to discriminate these among plant species with different growth forms. The ATR-FTIR spectra in the fingerprint region (1800–800 cm⁻¹) of live and dead leaves from 14 tundra plant species of shrubs, forbs, graminoids, and mosses showed a variability in overall appearance among plant species and a degree of similarity between live and dead leaves of the same plant species. Four highest peaks were found at 1637–1575 cm⁻¹, 1452–1406 cm⁻¹, 1325–1313 cm⁻¹, and 1058–1022 cm⁻¹ in these spectra and are attributed to chemical features of lignin, cellulose, and/or oxalate. Principal component analyses showed that leaves of Oxyria digyna and other forbs had distinctive spectral characteristics attributable to the content of oxalate and other putative compounds and that contents of lignin relative to cellulose were generally greater in shrubs than in graminoids and mosses. These results demonstrated that ATR-FTIR spectroscopy is useful for future applications in polar biology and ecology, for example the description of functional traits of arctic plants and decomposition processes by microbes.

Collaboration is critical concept in Arctic anthropology, in which indigenous people participate not just as research subjects but as collaborative partners in advancing scientific knowledge. The trans-disciplinary approach develops new conceptual, theoretical, and methodological innovations that transcend discipline-specific boundaries. Such innovations facilitate engagement between indigenous and non-indigenous stakeholders in addressing real-world challenges. This paper documents several Siberian ethnography exhibitions organized by the authors and evaluates their anthropological and social significance. Historically, anthropological discourse has championed using visual materials as tools for cultural interventions aimed at societal transformation. Building upon this foundation, this study explores the challenges of both the Russian Arctic and Asian contexts. The article guides the readers to reconsider conventional anthropological perspectives and methods of collaborating both with the indigenous and non-indigenous partners. By outlining the authors experiences in involving local stakeholders across different countries in these exhibitions, they illuminate the impact of the exhibitions on diverse cultural contexts. As cross-cultural visual anthropology endeavors, the exhibits redefine the meaning of ethnographical snapshots as scientific knowledge and go beyond repatriating indigenous cultures or sharing research outcomes with the broader society. The cross-cultural exhibition is becoming a novel research modality and a tool for fostering social interactions.

The Ob River and its tributaries in the Arctic region have interesting ecological and ethical characteristics. Museum exhibits play an important role in educating people of all ages. However, in Western Siberia, where the Ob River flows, there are no exhibits that scientifically explain the nature of the local rivers. Another issue is that small towns are scattered over large areas, making it difficult to educate residents through a single museum exhibition. Therefore, this study applied the knowledge gained from traveling exhibition research carried out in Japan to Russian regional towns, developed a traveling exhibition package for learning about the Ob River and its tributaries in a fun and hands-on manner, and traveled to three cities in Western Siberia. We were able to develop a traveling exhibition that allowed visitors to learn about the Ob River from a perspective that integrated the arts and sciences, and that was also entertaining, with many interactive exhibits. This was significant because a wide range of people, regardless of ethnicity, were able to experience and learn from the exhibition.

In the context of accelerated climate dynamics and uncertainties surrounding climate change research, collaborative approaches to knowledge generation are increasingly cited as a pathway needed for navigating the complexity of challenges. There is a widespread consensus that researcher-community joint expertise deepens our understanding of climatic changes. However, how this unfolds in practical settings lacks rigorous empirical support in the landscape of contemporary environmental studies. The article focuses on the intrinsic process of expert knowledge exchange and creating knowledge-in-action space for meaningful community-researcher partnerships. Addressing these issues draws upon experiences facilitating public events for diverse audiences in different countries and varying settings of scale, format and level of engagement. This account refers to the essential role of dialogue, interactivity, culturally sensitive devotion and visualization as powerful tools in building a platform for knowledge co-creation. It analyzes different ways of designing knowledge exchange that give access to a spectrum of experimentation, self-reflection and liaison with art but also requires mobilizing ethics and flexibility.

We apply a simplified 2d Visco-Plastic (VP) sea ice model with a spatially variable representation of the sea ice rheological parameters for retrieving maximum compressive sea ice strength from satellite and in situ observations. A set of Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs) demonstrates feasibility of optimizing rheological parameter of the VP sea ice model through the variational data assimilation approach during the periods of strong sea ice convergence if accurate sea ice observations are available. Following this strategy, the developed variational data assimilation VP model was applied to the sea ice velocity (https://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0116/versions/4), sea ice concentration (https://nsidc.org/data/) and CryoSat-2 sea ice thickness observations collected in the vicinity of three moorings in the Beaufort Sea during periods of intensive sea ice convergence. Ice velocities from moorings and atmospheric wind speed (NCEP-NCAR) were used as well. Our results show that conventional maximum compressive sea ice strength (Hibler, 1979) may depend on sea ice thickness or other parameters partly controlled by the sea ice thickness, which is driven by the seasonal cycle.

The SNOWPACK model is a cryosphere model which incorporates several environmental model parameters, one of which being the aerodynamic roughness length (z₀). The z₀ is considered a static parameter, however, research has shown that the z₀ of the surface is variable due to the changing nature of the snowpack surface throughout the winter season. This study highlights the sensitivity of the z₀ within the SNOWPACK model based on the outputs of sublimation, SWE, and sensible heat. The z₀ values were calculated in two ways, anemometrically (z_0-A), using a wind profile, and geometrically (z_0-G), measuring surface geometry. Calculated z_0-A values were between 1.03 × 10⁻⁶ to 0.12 m. The z_0-G values were calculated from a terrestrial lidar scan using various resolution values of post-process resolutions. These resolutions of 0.01, 0.1, and 1 m resulted in z_0-G values of 0.26, 0.08, and 0.01 m, respectively. Therefore, as the resolution coarsened, the z_0-G values decreased. Lastly, these calculated z_0-G values, a variable run, using weekly measured z_0-G values, and 0.002 (SNOWPACK default), 0.02, and 0.2 m values were incorporated into the SNOWPACK model. When applied, cumulative sublimation, SWE, and sensible heat outputs varied by 131%, −71%, and −49%, when compared to the default z₀ value used within the model.