5:15 PM - 6:45 PM
[MIS01-P01] Interdisciplinary Earth System Studies over Northern Eurasia: First years of the Northern Eurasia Future Initiative
Keywords:Northern Eurasia, Environmental, climatic, and socio-economic changes , Interdisciplinary studies, NEFI
Overarching Science Question of Northern Eurasia Future Initiative (NEFI) is How to provide in Northern Eurasia a sustainable development in changing climate, ecosystems, and societies? When after 2016, NEFI replaced its predecessor Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI), the transition process was soft and slow. We incorporated the ongoing NEEESPI projects into NEFI (some had been completed and not continuing), gradually launched a new generation of NEFI projects, kept running joint annually NEFI/NEESPI sessions at large international conferences in the USA, Russia, and Japan, preserved dedicated NEESPI (and thereafter NEFI) publication outlets: special Issues of Environ. Res. Lett., Environ. Res. Comm., and Special Issues within the MDPI family of journals (Water, Forest, Atmosphere, Land, and Fire), and left unchanged a requirement of having international research teams as a qualification to name themselves NEFI projects (small study topics are filtered away by this requirement).
From the start, NEFI has met three hurdles. Firstly, the change of main objective required different skills of the researchers involved in the projects. Social scientists became critical for the progress of NEFI. Secondly, the NEFI term "large-scale study" had to be modified. When a researcher is working on the human community level, he cannot withdraw himself from the problems of this community. Finally, since 2014 and, especially, since February 2022, "political climate" in the world has irreversibly changed. The joint work of Earth Science researchers from two groups of countries is now under harsh scrutiny or simply is forbidden by government regulations of these countries.
How to proceed?
A new generation of scientists prepared in national universities and middle-career scientists, who are not afraid to start over and again, as they did in the past, will overcome the first two obstacles listed above. Shortly speaking, we need just keep working and be utmost creative.
We are only starting to learn how to work in a new "political climate".
Northern Eurasia can be divided into three macro-regions. The Eurasian Arctic, The Eurasian Boreal Forest zone, and The Eurasian Drylands (a belt from Mongolia and Northern China up to steppes of Eastern Europe). In each macro-region, we have distinctive research foci and key research players. Russian institutions are better positioned to conduct research in the Eurasian Arctic (beyond Fennoscandia) and Boreal Forest zones. The Chinese research Institutions are better positioned for studying the Eurasian Drylands (cf., the Great Silk Road projects).
The Arctic is a region of the most robust climatic change (warming, cryosphere retreat, variable and intense poleward heat transport by atmospheric circulation and ocean currents). North Atlantic and North American parts of the Arctic differ from the Russian Arctic. in the future, changes in both these parts of the Arctic can be significant but different. Therefore, it would extremely contra-productive to delay studies in this part of the world. In the Arctic, we have an essential field for joint research and fruitful exchange of information and ideas, whatever the future "political climate" will be. It will be too dangerous to act differently.
Nearly all Eurasian Boreal Forest Zone is in Russia. Species composition in this Zone differs from Canadian and Alaskan taiga and is unique. Here, changes in carbon cycle (above and below the surface, including wetlands and permafrost) have a potential to affect the global carbon balance. It would be unpractical to invest big into carbon control measures and left unknown its dynamics in Russian taiga.
From the start, NEFI has met three hurdles. Firstly, the change of main objective required different skills of the researchers involved in the projects. Social scientists became critical for the progress of NEFI. Secondly, the NEFI term "large-scale study" had to be modified. When a researcher is working on the human community level, he cannot withdraw himself from the problems of this community. Finally, since 2014 and, especially, since February 2022, "political climate" in the world has irreversibly changed. The joint work of Earth Science researchers from two groups of countries is now under harsh scrutiny or simply is forbidden by government regulations of these countries.
How to proceed?
A new generation of scientists prepared in national universities and middle-career scientists, who are not afraid to start over and again, as they did in the past, will overcome the first two obstacles listed above. Shortly speaking, we need just keep working and be utmost creative.
We are only starting to learn how to work in a new "political climate".
Northern Eurasia can be divided into three macro-regions. The Eurasian Arctic, The Eurasian Boreal Forest zone, and The Eurasian Drylands (a belt from Mongolia and Northern China up to steppes of Eastern Europe). In each macro-region, we have distinctive research foci and key research players. Russian institutions are better positioned to conduct research in the Eurasian Arctic (beyond Fennoscandia) and Boreal Forest zones. The Chinese research Institutions are better positioned for studying the Eurasian Drylands (cf., the Great Silk Road projects).
The Arctic is a region of the most robust climatic change (warming, cryosphere retreat, variable and intense poleward heat transport by atmospheric circulation and ocean currents). North Atlantic and North American parts of the Arctic differ from the Russian Arctic. in the future, changes in both these parts of the Arctic can be significant but different. Therefore, it would extremely contra-productive to delay studies in this part of the world. In the Arctic, we have an essential field for joint research and fruitful exchange of information and ideas, whatever the future "political climate" will be. It will be too dangerous to act differently.
Nearly all Eurasian Boreal Forest Zone is in Russia. Species composition in this Zone differs from Canadian and Alaskan taiga and is unique. Here, changes in carbon cycle (above and below the surface, including wetlands and permafrost) have a potential to affect the global carbon balance. It would be unpractical to invest big into carbon control measures and left unknown its dynamics in Russian taiga.