It is a place that we usually imagine white and icy. But today it is over 40°C. This region of Russia is going through the worst heat wave in its history.
Heat stroke on the planet. After the suffocating temperatures in Southeast Asia, as well as terrible fires ravaging part of Canada, this phenomenon also affects Siberia, an immense region in the northeast of Russia, as large as 25 times the size of France. At the beginning of June, in this place supposed to be one of the coldest and one of the most inhospitable on the globe, the mercury exceeded… 40°C. And the forests began to burn. As in 2021. As in 2020. As in 2019.
The Arctic, in general, is experiencing increasingly extreme temperatures. Over the past 50 years, it has even warmed three times faster than the rest of the world. From 1971 to 2019, the average annual temperature in this northern region would have risen by 3.1°C, when the planet warmed up at the same time by 1°C.
The melting of permafrost, an environmental bomb
Another consequence is the reappearance of viruses hitherto carefully preserved in the frozen earth. Finally, this melting ground threatens the stability of the gas pipeline infrastructure, roads or villages.
Opening of new maritime routes
And then, finally, the ice of the pack ice melts, too. From July to October, it is now possible to connect Asia to Europe from the north along the coast of Siberia: it is the shortest route, much faster than going through the Suez Canal.
Freight traffic could quadruple within five years. The commercial stakes are enormous, especially for Russia, which has 20,000 kilometers of coastline – and as a precaution, has set up 18 military bases there. Moscow, which seeks to open up, has made the Arctic its new El Dorado. Global warming also makes hydrocarbon or uranium deposits more accessible. Too bad for the polar bears: “Business is business“.