Response of high-mountain Altai thermal regime to climate global warming of recent decades

The paper presents a brief climatic characteristic and statistical analysis on dynamics of thermal regime in Altai Mountains. The close correlation between temperature series of the Russian and northern part of Mongolian Altai was determined. It was found that the rate of temperature increase for the period under consideration (1940-2008) ranged from 0.19 to 0.53 A degrees D/10 years, and the most significant increase was registered during the cold seasons. During the maximum global warming (1980-1999), a 2-4.5 times increase of annual average temperature was observed as compared to the period of 1940-1979. The temperature series variations obtained with the Welch's method and wavelet analysis correspond to the periods of North Atlantic Oscillation and solar activity variation.