Sanctions to Blame: Global Climate Models Stop Working Without Data from Russia

Western climatologists explain how sanctions against Russia have affected their research

Climate models compiled in the West since 2022 without taking into account data from Russia are a waste of time, as they are unreliable. This was stated by climatologists from Denmark, Finland, Great Britain and the USA, participants in the INTERACT research project.

climate scientist
Image source generated by the DALL•Е 3 neural network

How climate models work

A climate model, which helps to judge climate change, is compiled on the basis of data from all over the globe. They are included in a digital model for forecasting. Indicators of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, land, soil cover, and glaciers are taken into account. With the help of complex mathematical calculations, changes are calculated in certain time intervals.

Arctic Monitoring

The Arctic is called the "weather kitchen" of the Earth. Cyclones are formed here, melted ice feeds the Atlantic, and ice cover cools the entire planet. The accuracy of data for climate models depends on understanding the processes that occur in the Arctic region. These issues are also dealt with by the Arctic Council, an international forum promoting cooperation in the Arctic. Since 2023, Russia has not been invited to council events.

Today, there is not a single joint international project in the Arctic with the participation of universities or scientific organizations from Russia
Olga Shaduyko, Director of the Center for International Cooperation of TSU

She explained that 21 of the 95 ground stations of the INTERACT project are located in Russia. Against the background of sanctions, Western scientists do not receive data from the Russian side.

On the left is the location of Russian (red) and foreign (black) Arctic research stations of the INTERACT network. On the right is the deviation in the reliability of the parameter, taking into account data from Russian stations (gray) or without them (red). The dark gray bar is the maximum deviation of modern values of the parameter compared to the values of the end of the last century (with confidence intervals). The parameter estimate is considered reliable if the deviation value is below this bar
Image source Efrén López-Blanco et al. / Nature Climate Change

In fact, INTERACT is doing useless work. Their unreliable conclusions are used by specialists from the World Meteorological Organization, the International Council for Science and other departments. Climatologists from Denmark, Finland, Great Britain and the USA, involved in INTERACT, emphasized that the international scientific community should create monitoring programs that are representative of the entire Arctic, and this cannot be done without data exchange with all countries, including Russia.

Roscosmos receives information about the situation in the Arctic from the new hydrometeorological satellite "Arktika-M" No. 2, launched into space in mid-December 2023.

Science uchenye «Arktika-M» INTERACT