365 Days of Climate Awareness 294 – Introduction to Siberia

Siberia is the gigantic continental area of northern Asia reaching from the Ural Mountains to the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. It comprises about ¾ of Russia, itself accounting for about 6% of the world’s surface area (13.1 million sq km/5.1 million sq mi). Nearly a third of it is the northern evergreen forest, the taiga (3.9 million sq km/1.5 million sq mi). The region is populated very sparsely, with only about 37 million people, due mostly to the extreme climate and remoteness. Very little infrastructure exists there—the Trans-Siberian Railway is the most famous example—and most settlements are clustered in its southern half.

Physical map of Siberia.

Siberian oil provinces.

Nomads roamed the southern plains for more than a thousand years, but in the 1500’s Russia began extending its territory eastward, and reached the Pacific by the late 1600’s. Russia has never relinquished control since then, whether as the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, or the Russian Federal Republic. Siberia has tremendous natural resources, including the metals and other minerals of Siberia’s central province. The huge oil deposits in both central and western Siberia have led to Russia’s huge petroleum industry. The settlements are in remote locations, frequently in arctic environments, and are connected via pipeline to distribution networks both west and east.

Western Taiga ecozone.

Eastern Taiga ecozone.

Siberia falls into three general zones: west, central and east. The western zone is lower in elevation, between the Ural Moutnains, the ancient suture between Baltica and (proto-)Siberia. It consists mostly of sedimentary deposits eroded from the mountains and the craton to the east. The Siberian craton, the central province, is one of the world’s most ancient continental cores, is rich in minerals, and includes the giant basalt deposits laid down at the end of the Permian. The eastern zone, known also as the Lena-Tunguska petroleum province, bounded by mountains to east and south, is another sedimentary rock zone. To the south are the many folds of mountains north of the Tibetan Plateau, all resulting from the continuing collision of India with Asia.

Larch forest of the western taiga.

Frozen waterfall and basalt cliffs of central Siberia.

Climatically Siberia ranges from dry, cold steppe in the south to the temperate plains north of that, through the forested taiga, to the tundra of the far north. The taiga itself is divided into eastern and western halves. Only larches can survive the frigid, plains of the west, where snowfall is not heavy but permafrost is very deep. Huge bogs swamps, the largest on earth, cover about 40% of that region. Climatically the region is cool in summer, dry and frigid in winter—its Köppen classification is “subarctic”. In the east the forest is a mixture of deciduous (leafy) and coniferous (evergreen). Eastern Siberia has an even more extreme continental climate, ranging from 20ºC/68ºF in summer to -30ºC/-22ºF in winter. It is the coldest region on earth behind Antarctica and Greenland.

Siberian oilfield operations.

Lake Kutsherla, Altai Mountains.

The huge forest which dominates central and western Siberia is one of the world’s great carbon sinks, though this is coming under increasing threat.

Tomorrow: threats to the Siberian taiga.

Be brave, and be well.