Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk. Seriya geograficheskaya

Hydrothermodynamic processes in the atmosphere–ocean system played in favour of global warming slowdown in 1998–2014 were studied in this work. On the base of remote sensing and reanalysis data, close relationships between total global and regional column water vapour, terrestrial wind speed and temperature anomalies of upper layer water in tropical Pacific region were revealed. Increase of the wind speed in tropical Pacific has been observed since 1980 (linear trend ratio is –0.017 m · s–1/year). The most significant wind speed increase was in 1992–2013 (–0.025 m · s–1/year). During this period, the following phenomena were also observed: water temperature rise in upper layers of central and east equatorial Pacific regions by 0.024 K/year and accumulation of heat in the deeper layers of western Pacific north of the equator. These tendencies contributed to decrease in evaporation from the surface of the Pacific, which exerts considerable influence on the global mean water vapour content in the atmosphere with nearly 1-year lag (correlation coefficient is 0.88). Thus, average total column water vapour had been decreasing with average rate 0.12 mm/year until 2014. Atmospheric radiation transfer model calculations showed that decrease of water vapour content in atmospheric during 2001–2014 reduced the incoming part of Earth’s surface radiation balance by 0.93 W/m², which exceeds CO2-related increase in greenhouse warming by 11 times. Such behaviour of greenhouse gases concentrations could be the reason of decrease of winter temperature in Northern hemisphere. Summer temperatures continued to grow due to decrease in cloud optical depth in 35°N–70°N latitude zone and following radiation heating of the land surface.

The microdistrict principle of urban environment organization, developed in Soviet urban planning, formed a certain configuration of the placement of trade and services. However, the market transformations of the 1990s dramatically affected both the number of retail facilities and their location. The purpose of this research was to identify the effects of retail development for the functions and morphology of the microdistricts of Soviet construction. The work is based on empirical materials on St. Petersburg, where research was conducted based on the study of telephone books in the late 1980s, and field mapping of selected areas of the city. It was found that at the moment there was a rapprochement of the retail functions of the areas of mass housing construction and the historical center. The number and density of everyday demand objects in microdistricts increased many-fold, while goods and services of periodic demand came out on top in terms of the number of objects. Retail of episodic demand has ceased to obey the center-peripheral principle in placement. The Soviet principle of spatial monopoly was replaced by the principle of spatial competition, which significantly transformed the morphology of urban space.

The empirical-statistical models of spatial organization and function of forest biogeocoenoses of the Prioksko-Terrasny Reserve are developed. The edaphic climaxes of forest communities reflecting the diversity of zonal structures of this subtaiga region are revealed. The causal mechanisms of climax formation are described. The role of catenary organization of biogeocoenoses, as well as the lithogenic factor and the hydrological regime in the structure of forest cover is demonstrated. It is shown that the nature reserve can be a favorable testing ground for regional geosystem monitoring. However, the range of objects for solving the problems of global biosphere monitoring is very limited here due to ubiquitous forest regeneration successions. The two groups of forest biogeocoenoses are proposed as priority objects in respect to structural development and biological cycle parameters – (1) mesomorphic and meso-xeromorphic pine-lime-oak and pine-lime mixed grass and broad grass forests in a wide range of landscape interfaces (from eluvial geotopes to transaccumulative); (2) meso-hydromorphic spruce and spruce-pine acid-green forests of flat poorly drained watersheds (eluvial). This significantly diversifies the objects of geosystem monitoring.

The geology and mammal and mollusk fauna from the Late Pleistocene locality Sanmanych (the single location of paleontological remains in the Manych basin) in Rostov region are discussed. The received data permit to reconstruct the climatic-environmental condition during the Early Khvalynian transgression in the Manych basin. This transgression was dated by 14 C in the interval between 16–12 kyr BP. As a result of the formation of a Cascade of Eurasian Basins for the first time in the Late Pleistocene Caspian waters of the Khvalynian Sea had flooded to the Manych depression and the Manych-Kerch strait was originated during that time. The marine mollusks appeared in the Manych basin together with Caspian Sea water. The salinity of Khvalynian basin was close to the same of the Caspian Sea (10–12%) and the water temperature was lower than recent one, what confirms by the fact that mollusk’ shells were two-three times smaller than the modern ones of the same species. The analysis of the small mammal fauna permits to reconstruct the arid open landscapes during the formation of the location. The lower mammal diversity indicates the unfavorable climatic and environment conditions – the high aridity and the rather cool climate.

The article is devoted to the analysis of croplands dynamics during crisis and post-crisis period (1990–2014) in 68 agrarian developed regions of the Russian Federation. Three types of dynamics are revealed: “sustainable decreasing (deagrarization),” “decreasing–stabilization,” “decreasing–growth (re-agrogenesis).” It is shown that the principle change of trends of area croplands is observed in the present days: from large-scale decreasing to stabilization and growth in the majority of regions in the country. It is proved that combination of the bioclimatic potential (BCP) and rural population decrease are those major factors which define allocation of three types of dynamics of the cultivated lands and well describe change of croplands for the last 25 years. Influence of rural population change on dynamics of croplands is analyzed at different levels of BCP. This influence has the strongest effect in the regions of “decreasing–stabilization” type. In the regions of “sustainable decreasing” this effect is the lowest (low level of BCP) and for regions of “decreasing–growth” this effect is the weakest (high level of BCP). Therefore, from the middle of the 2000th we observe a rapid restoration of that spatial and factorial matrix of change of the agrarian areas which was created in the second half of the 19th century and has survived all events of the last century and the events of the beginning of this century.

Development of territories with excessive mineral resource use is traditionally based on income from mining and mineral resources processing. At the same time, their ecosystems are an important source of human well-being as they produce many ecosystem services. Reaching a compromise between two sources of territory development – abiotic services (coal mining) and ecosystem services – is one of the major objectives of sustainable development of the regions with excessive mineral resource use. This article assesses and compares ecosystem and abiotic services in the coal-mining area in Kemerovo oblast in monetary and physical terms. The results of economic evaluation of ecosystem and abiotic services are considered to be a key element in efficiency assessment of spatial organization of environmental management concerning sustainable development of the territory.

Today identification of altitudinal zones of landscapes in local areas, especially in mountainous areas, is inextricably linked with the creation of digital terrain models and their geoinformation interpretation. We have considered the altitudinal zonation of landscapes on the Mamai model testing area, located on the Northern macroslope of the Khamar-Daban Ridge and in the Tankhoi coastal plain of the Baikal Lake. The special geoinformation software, partially modernized during the works, was used. Landscapes were studied by their main components: relief and geomorphological processes, soils and soil-forming processes, vegetation. The landscapes of the testing area are represented by three main groups: 1) goltsy altitudinal and mountain-taiga landscapes of the Khamar-Daban Ridge on the crystalline metamorphic rocks of the khungurul series of the lower Proterozoic age and granites of the Khamar-Daban and Sayan intrusive complexes of the upper Proterozoic and lower Paleozoic, respectively; 2) taiga and meadow-marsh landscapes of the Tankhoi plain on loose sediments of the Late Pliocene and Quaternary ages; 3) intrazonal landscapes within transverse mountain river valleys on the Late Pleistocene and Neo-Pleistocene and modern loose sediments. The base of the identification of altitudinal zones of the landscape is layers of a relief. But the relief is a fairly static component of the landscape, its invariant structure change for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. To determine a more detailed and dynamic structure of the altitudinal zonation, we use other components: soils and vegetation. Changes in the invariant structure of the soil cover occur for thousands or tens of thousands of years, and of the vegetation cover – for hundreds or thousands of years. Features of the landscapes structure and characteristics of their main components allowed us to allocate six altitudinal zones in the testing area: goltsy altitudinal, subgoltsy altitudinal, low-mountain, foothill, foothill-plain, and coastal-plain. The intrazonal landscapes of transverse mountain river valleys, which violate the normal structure of the altitudinal zonation, are singled out as a separate type.

In this article the method of derivation of the hierarchical levels of organization of climatic variables or regional scale is considered. Based on the Worldclim database, the main integral factors reflecting the variation of climatic variables are identified, and then decomposed into hierarchical levels with different linear dimensions of oscillations. Hierarchical levels are distinguished through the study of the fractal dimensions of different parts of the spectrum of the obtained factors and the isolation of subharmonics on the basis of an analysis of the residues of the fractal model. The analysis shows the existence of a complex hierarchical organization of the region's mesoclimate. The approach makes it possible to identify the most significant scales and amplitudes of fluctuations in climatic variables, both for natural and for agricultural ecosystems. Differentiation of the variation of climatic variables at different spatial scales and the influence of these elements on a specific ecosystem object creates a basis for constructing statistical models of ecosystem processes or yield patterns of various agricultural crops. The possibilities of visualization of climate variation at different hierarchical levels and reflection of equilibrium (normative) relations between the studied ecosystem processes and the current state of climate in the region are shown.

The paper contains a summary of the new data relevant to the time and routes of the first peopling of the New World. The first unambiguous traces of humans are dated by the time span after the Last Glacial Maximum. The chronology and orientation of prehistoric migrations depended on the Late Pleistocene paleogeography. Instead of a postulated single wave of migration oriented from NW to SE from the Bering Land Bridge via the Mackenzie ice-free corridor to the territory lying southwards from the ice sheets we argue about a complicated picture of human movements of different age and direction. It seems that the earliest inhabitants penetrated from Beringia to the main area of North America following the Pacific coast and later dispersed to the east. The migration along the Mackenzie ice-free corridor should have place later. The Clovis culture seems to originate in the southeastern part of the USA territory then dispersing in northern and western directions along the whole continent. The Final Pleistocene saw the ‘inverse’ migration of the Paleoindians to the north, along the Mackenzie corridor to Beringia.