by Vladimir ZUYEV, RAS Corresponding Member, deputy director for scientific work of the Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems, RAS Siberian Branch (Tomsk) What is happening with the climate of our planet? More and more often scientists fail to give a simple answer. Has modern civilization reached a potential to influence the climate or is that a great exaggeration? How much is humankind responsible for current processes? To what extent is the rise of global temperature conditioned by anthropogenic growth of the content of carbonic acid gas in the atmosphere, possessing a hothouse effect? The obvious mismatch in the dynamics of these two climatic parameters observed for the last decade is something out of the ordinary. What is in store for us in the near future--global warming and the Flood as a result of melting glaciers or a new ice age? What we are witnessing is an acceleration of global climatic changes, deepening of climatic contrasts, increasing of frequency and amplitude of manifestations of extreme weather phenomena; hurricanes, floods, anomalously long periods of drought, resulting in forest fires. All this leads to changes of landscapes--our habitat, aggravation of stress of all living creatures on the planet. As a result there increases a probability of irrevocable losses of the weakest and unprotected biosphere links, which lead to the growth of destructive processes like an avalanche stone-fall, beginning from moving of single stones. The least protected are ecosystems of polar and subpolar regions. In order to reasonably oppose approaching dangers, it is necessary to understand the nature of contemporary climatic changes. This task is very complicated as multilink climatic system "lithosphere-cryosphere-hydrosphere-atmosphere-biosphere" is entangled by an intricate network of direct and reverse, positive and negative links dynamically changing under an impact of both inner (terrestrial) and outer (cosmophysica ... Читать далее