ST. PETERSBURG, December 28. /TASS/. Russian scientists begin making a system of climate and ecology monitoring of the Russian Arctic seas to follow up greenhouse gases' concentrations affecting climate change. The first two stations were equipped on the North Pole - 41 drifting polar station and on the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago, director of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI, St. Petersburg) Alexander Makarov said.

"It is necessary to control greenhouse gases to assess the warming rates. In the Arctic, the climate is getting warmer two to three times faster than elsewhere on the planet. Those are greenhouse gases, or rather, changes in their concentration in the atmosphere, that accelerate and enhance cyclic processes. Due to the shrinking summer ice cover in the Arctic seas, open water areas in the seas are increasing. We can see the influx of warm Atlantic waters rich in nutrients. The result is the active development of phytoplankton that consumes carbon dioxide from water and produces organic carbon," the scientist said.

Unlike other observations, the monitoring of gas flows in the Arctic is technically difficult - it requires highly sensitive equipment to track the movement of gases from land and from the water surface. Specialists eye various options to develop the system, he told TASS, including to use floating buoys in the Arctic Ocean.

At the next stage, specialists of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute expect to expand observations of climate gas flows. The data, transmitted offline via satellites, will improve significantly the understanding of processes in the region in winter, when the Arctic seas are covered with ice.

The research features a consortium of seven state scientific centers, led by the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology (the Russian Academy of Sciences).