Approaches to assessment of relief-forming processes under conditions of global warming (with reference to northern Eurasia within the boundaries of the former USSR)

Abstract

Palaeoclimatic characteristics based on paleogeographic reconstructions for the optimums of the Holocene and the last interglacial appear to be close in estimated range of global warming to those expected in the current century according to IPCC (scenario A1B). Reconstructions of the state of environmental components in Northern Eurasia under given seasonal and annual temperature and precipitations allowed developing scenarios of expected changes in ecosystems within individual landscape zones. Regions of most probable appearance of instability in ecosystems are mostly confined to northern lowlands (permafrost degradation), plains in the southern East European Plain (accelerated erosion) and southern mountains (mudflows, landslides, etc.).