ST. PETERSBURG, April 25. /TASS/. The southernmost station of a large-scale permafrost monitoring system, which Russia creates to monitor changes in global warming conditions, was opened on a high pass in the Altai Region at the border with Mongolia. The new station is the final location of the north-south observation line. Scientists will use it to forecast changes in perennially frozen soils, press service of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI, St. Petersburg) said.

"The well is located 2,100 meters above sea level in the southern section of the Chui tract - one of the highest car passes in the Altai Region, right at the border with Mongolia. The southernmost monitoring station is equidistant from the Arctic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, in an area with the extreme continental climate," the press service said.

Earlier, in December, 2023, scientists organized the northernmost permafrost observation station on the Heiss Island of the Franz Josef Land Archipelago. The importance of the new, southern, station is in observing permafrost in the Altai's mountainous regions, where the permafrost has moved deeper, leaving the upper soil layers without ice. This degradation can change the water balance and can affect pasture farming, which is the region's basic economic sector, and it can also cause problems in capital construction.

"When we get data on changes in soil temperature, we will understand how and at what speed the surface will change the permafrost zone, which is important for timely response and for appropriate adjustment of the region's economy, infrastructures and industrial facilities to new climatic realities," the institute's director Alexander Makarov said.

About the monitoring system

In 2023, Russia started organizing a system of the permafrost's reference monitoring. The system's purpose is to assess the current conditions, to forecast changes and to cut negative effects of melting permafrost soils in the country. The monitoring system will cover the permafrost's entire territory - that is 65% of the Russian Federation. Within three years, specialists will equip 140 stations that would conduct ongoing automatic temperature measurements at the permafrost's different depths.

AARI is the system's operator. In 2023, specialists set up 20 permafrost observation stations in Russia's five regions: in the Arkhangelsk, Krasnoyarsk, Altai, Yakutia Regions and in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region. Data from all the stations is transmitted to the institute's Permafrost Monitoring Center. Another 58 wells, including in the Far East and Buryatia, will be commissioned during the current year.