Climate studies in Russia in 1999-2002

This work is a review of the results of the studies conducted in Russia during 1999-2002 in the area of climate and its changes. This review was prepared at the Climate Commission of the National Geophysical Committee. The basic part of the results obtained in recent years in the area of climate changes and their impacts for Russia was published in Global Climate Changes and Their Impacts for Russia (2002), Climate Changes and Their Impacts (2002), and in Climate Change (2001a, 2001b, 2001c). The problem of possible climate changes is one of the key problems of the 21st century. The results of an analysis of observational data obtained over the territory of Russia-the largest country in the world-are very important for studies of global climate. A large number of regional climate anomalies have been observed over its territory extended from the polar latitudes to the subtropics and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Moreover, according to model calculations, drastic temperature variations associated with a global anthropogenic warming must manifest themselves in the high latitudes, in particular, in Siberia.