Climate Science

EARTH’S CLIMATE IS A DYNAMIC SYSTEM

Earth’s climate is a system in a dynamically stable state — a dynamic equilibrium. As long as the planetary mechanism that sustains the climate keeps working, it fluctuates around normal values; when this mechanism breaks down, climate stability breaks down as well.
 
AVERAGE TEMPERATURE, ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION, AND THE STATE OF WATER SHARPLY DISTINGUISH EARTH FROM OTHER PLANETS
Diagram «Main components of the atmospheres of several planets in the Solar System»
 
THE LE CHATELIER PRINCIPLE
Diagram «How the Le Chatelier principle works to reduce CO2 concentration in the atmosphere»
The mechanism that ensures the balance of chemical substances in the atmosphere was discovered for chemical reactions and is called the Le Chatelier principle. This principle holds for the climate system and maintains the balance of chemical substances in the atmosphere.
Natural ecosystems, and above all natural forests, play the main role in this process.
The principle works as follows: if a large release of carbon dioxide or another chemical occurs somewhere, a healthy ecosystem will begin to absorb it intensively.

Disturbed ecosystems and artificial biosystems (fields, pastures, exploited forests) are not capable of biotic environmental regulation. On the contrary, they act as environmental destabilizers and draw on the accumulated stability resource for their own existence.
Fluctuations in climate parameters over the past several million years have not exceeded the limits that allow Life to exist on our planet.
Diagram «Planetary temperature 100 million years ago and forecast through 2100»
LIFE ON LAND APPEARED ONLY ABOUT 500-600 MILLION YEARS AGO, AND THE CONDITIONS FOR THIS WERE CREATED BY THE BIOSPHERE ITSELF
The emergence of plants, evolution, and the growth in diversity and abundance of photosynthesizing organisms — whose activity produced free oxygen as a byproduct — ultimately led to a radical change in the gas composition of the atmosphere and to plants and animals moving onto land.
Diagram «Change of atmosphere types and the emergence of the possibility for higher plants and animals to move onto land as a result of the activity of photosynthesizing autotrophs»
Only microscopic organisms lived in Biosphere-I; in particular, the left side of the figure shows the chemosynthesizing bacteria CI. sporopenitum and Thiothrix. The emergence of photosynthesizing cyanobacteria allowed the entire diversity of multicellular life to develop; the right side of the figure shows cyanobacteria of the genus Nostoc, the spirillum Desulfotomaculum, trilobites, horsetail and spruce forests, a mammoth, a wolf, and modern humans — all representatives of Biosphere-II.
ONLY NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS CAN CREATE CLIMATE
All human attempts to make progress in this area fail to provide a technological substitute for the natural mechanism of biotic regulation. Moreover, everything we call cultivated land, arable land, gardens, parks, etc. is an anthropogenic ecosystem that negatively affects the functioning of the biotic mechanism of environmental management. They do not create life — they only destroy and consume it.
Diagram «Relationship between the state of ecosystems and climate»
LIVING NATURE SHAPES AND REGULATES THE CLIMATE
A «mature ecosystem» maintains the modern composition of the atmosphere and ensures the stabilization and regulation of the climate.
Neither the shape of the Earth, nor its rotation, nor the unevenness of its surface has any direct bearing on the stability of the Earth’s climate. The forces that ensure this stability can only be created by Life itself — undisturbed.

 
CLIMATE CHANGE: A NEW REALITY, SCENARIOS, AND FORECASTS
Over the past 10,000 years, the average temperature on the planet has remained fairly stable, varying by less than 1°C, allowing human civilization to reach its most favorable indicator to date — 15°C. However, the very success of our civilization could have a devastating effect on the climate, which up to now has been exceptionally beneficial to us.
The problem we face today is that, since the start of the industrial revolution 250 years ago, greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere have been changing its physicochemical properties at an unprecedented rate. This has caused the sharpest change in atmospheric composition in the past 650,000 years. Despite the significant efforts we are making to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, global climate change will continue to proceed rapidly over the coming decades and beyond, with the likely amplitude of temperature fluctuations exceeding limits that are acceptable to us.
Diagram «Global temperature trend in Kyrgyzstan over the entire period of instrumental observations, in degrees Celsius»
 
In Kyrgyzstan, by the end of the century:
the average temperature increase will be 4°C to 6°C; precipitation will change within a range of -3% to +2%
 
Diagram «Global temperature trend in Kyrgyzstan over the entire period of instrumental observations, in degrees Celsius»
 
FORECAST OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES IN KYRGYZSTAN
Objective diagnostic data on the environmental situation shows that symptoms of negative global processes can be observed across Kyrgyzstan, primarily related to land degradation and the decline of biological diversity.
Diagram «Main trends related to climate change in Kyrgyzstan, from the present moment (2009) to 2100»
HUMAN ACTIVITY AFFECTS CLIMATE CHANGE
WORLD POWERS RECOGNIZE THAT MODERN CLIMATE CHANGE IS ANTHROPOGENIC IN NATURE
The UN International Climate Change Conference was held from November 29 to December 11, 2011, in the Mexican city of Cancún. 15,000 people gathered for the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 6th session of the Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. The package of decisions known as the Cancún Agreements lays the foundation for the long-term implementation of collective efforts to address climate change. At the negotiations, all countries acknowledged the predominantly anthropogenic and negative nature of climate change over the past 20-30 years and over the course of the 21st century as a whole. All countries are striving to avoid the most negative consequences of climate change.
— The Cancún Agreements
THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

The greenhouse effect gets its name because the Earth’s atmosphere acts like the walls and roof of a greenhouse. In a greenhouse, solar energy (mostly in the form of light) passes through the glass walls and roof, reaches the ground, and warms it. When sunlight passes through the atmosphere and, partially scattered by cloud systems, reaches the Earth’s surface, it warms the surface and the lower layers of the atmosphere. The warmed Earth itself begins to radiate energy, but now in the form of heat rather than light. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb the thermal energy reflected by the Earth’s surface and send part of it back to the surface, creating conditions for additional warming. The «blanket» of greenhouse gases in the troposphere, making up less than one percent of the entire atmosphere, performs a vitally important function of regulating the planet’s climate. This results in a «natural greenhouse effect,» which keeps the planet’s temperature 30°C higher than it would be without this effect — something that, as we know, has a substantial impact on life as a whole.
Over the past half-century, a planet-wide intensification of the greenhouse effect has been observed. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is steadily increasing. The rise in greenhouse gas emissions is a consequence of accelerated development around the world following the industrial revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries.

According to scientists’ calculations (Kondratyev et al., 2003), anthropogenic greenhouse gases are smaller in volume than natural ones, which are formed primarily through the respiration of all living organisms, volcanic activity, and other natural processes. This leads to the conclusion that greenhouse gases do not create the climate — they only modify it.
 

Biospheric emissions: respiration, the activity of living organisms, decomposition of organic matter, etc.

Anthropogenic emissions: released from burning fuel, production, and human respiration and activity

Diagram «Main anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases»

According to research by our scientists, the sectors in Kyrgyzstan most vulnerable to climate change are:

water resources (melting glaciers, shrinking lakes, increased surface runoff);
health (rising illness and mortality from climate-related diseases);
ecosystems (destruction of ecosystems, shifting of their boundaries);
agriculture (declining yields of various crops and pastures);
climate emergencies (increase in landslides, glacial lake outbursts, avalanches).

CONSEQUENCES OF CLIMATE CHANGE
MECHANISMS FOR MITIGATING THE CONSEQUENCES OF CLIMATE CHANGE

 
WHAT EVERYONE CAN DO.
MAKE YOUR CONTRIBUTION!
Recommendations have been developed for the public to prevent the negative consequences of climate change. Following these simple actions can significantly reduce the likelihood of a negative impact from the projected risks associated with climate change.
Poster «A Stable Climate — A Healthy Nation»