Rashit Khantemirov, one of the leading researchers of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Ural Federal University, told socialbites.ca that warming in Western Siberia may contribute to the disappearance of the forest-tundra due to the movement of larch.
“The climatic changes we have recorded, on the contrary, are contributing to the advance of larch north into the tundra. But since the seeds of a tree cannot spread over long distances, they do not have such a mechanism, this migration is practically invisible to us, it is very slow,” explained the source of socialbites.ca.
According to him, the northernmost forest areas turn into closed forests (forest areas occupied by trees with a crown density of more than 20%).
“It turned out that the disappearance of the forest-tundra took place, so to speak, there will not be a gradual transition from the forest to the tundra, there will be a clear boundary. Also, with modern changes, Christmas trees begin to replace larch. “What was a larch forest 100 years ago is now turning into a spruce forest,” Khantemirov said.
Previously, employees of the Dendrochronology Laboratory of the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Ural Federal University proven Global warming by studying the annual rings of Yamal semi-fossil trees and learning about summer temperatures over the last 7638 years.
It turned out that air temperature had dropped gradually over the previous millennium, but from the middle of the 19th century a trend began to reverse, the temperature began to rise very quickly and reached its highest values in recent decades.