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The results of many years of Russian‐French‐American studies of an ice core from a borehole in central Antarctica to a depth of 3310 m are presented. The data encompass four climatic cycles over the course of 420,000 years. The similarity and differences of each of the studied glacial epochs and interglacials are demonstrated with respect to a number of parameters: isotopic temperature, insolation conditions, airborne particulates, and greenhouse gases.

The results of processing of an ice core to a depth of 2,755 m, which encompasses the last two climatic cycles, are examined. Data on deuterium content in the ice are analyzed, as are paleotemperature, content of continental dust in the ice, and change in the isotopic composition of atmospheric oxygen extracted from the ice core. The problems involved in completing hole drilling are discussed and in this connection the characteristics of a large under‐ice lake in the vicinity of the Vostok station are described.

Two distinguished senior researchers with expertise on Russia's northern regions assess the current situation and recent developments in light of social, environmental, and economic change and recommend adjustments, in some cases substantial, in regional development policy. Particular emphasis is placed in this assessment upon the global importance of the Russian North in an environmental and natural resource sense. The authors add their voices to the now‐familiar call for state intervention to ensure sound management of resources and control over the level of foreign investments. In addition, they argue that, alongside a concern for the protection of the rights of the indigenous minorities (Small Peoples) of the North, attention should be devoted to the interests of a resident Russian population of several centuries.

Climatic conditions of the Penultimate Ice Age are analyzed on the basis of isotopic‐geochemical analyses of an ice core from the Vostok Antarctic research station. Data from the core, which includes material from as deep as 2546 m, permits the compilation of a chronology of glacial sediments and determination of time changes in air temperature and in gas composition of the former atmosphere; it also provides the basis for comparisons with information derived from oceanic cores. This makes possible interpretation of past climates in East Antarctica as far back as 200,000 years B.P., indicating that a long cold period similar to the last Ice Age occurred in the region from 140,000–220,000 years B.P.

The areas and volumes (in water equivalent) of seasonal snow cover in 10 sublatitudinal glaciological zones have been calculated from the maps of snow and ice storage in the World Atlas of Snow and Ice Resources. These zones are combined into five glaciological belts, subdivided by sublongitudinal boundaries into 36 glaciological provinces (Figs. 1 and 3). The area of seasonal snow cover on land and on the sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere totals 35 million km2; in the Northern Hemisphere it totals 73 million km2. The area of sea ice and of snow cover on that ice in the two hemispheres is almost equal, viz., 19 million km2 in the Southern Hemisphere and 17 million km2 in the Northern Hemisphere, whereas the areas of land‐based snow cover differ greatly between the two hemispheres, viz., 16 million km2 in the south and 56 million km2 in the north. The entire glaciosphere, including apart from the areas just cited, over 40 million km2 of ocean in which icebergs are widespread, covers 150 million k...

Analysis This review article summarizes the results of Soviet‐French investigations into the ice core from a deep drillhole at Vostok Station in Antarctica. Changes in air temperature, snow accumulation, greenhouse gases, aerosols and other chemical components in the environment are traced over 160,000 years, i.e., over a full climatic cycle. Orbital and atmospheric impacts on the climate and on the role of greenhouse gases in these processes are analyzed. On the basis of these analyses, it is predicted that with a doubling of atmospheric CO2 (which many scientists believe to be highly probable) temperatures may rise by 3–4° C; this in turn could lead to a massive collapse of the world's marine ice sheets and to a sea‐level rise of 5–7 m; mountain glaciers in temperate and subtropical latitudes would almost entirely disappear.

The focus of the article is the negative changes which can be expected in the world's glaciers associated with possible “greenhouse”; warming of the climate. It examines the mechanisms of the instability of marine ice sheets, which may lead to their catastrophic collapse and to a rise in sea level of 5–7 m over the next few decades. Calculations have been made concerning the extreme regimes of mountain glaciers in temperate and subtropical latitudes, which would involve a sharply negative mass balance (up to ‐3 to ‐5 m per year); this regime will lead to a rapid disappearance of these glaciers.

(1991). The Aral Sea Basin: A Critical Environmental Zone. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development: Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 4-38.

The authors analyze the relationship between aspects of land use, settlement, and production technologies, on the one hand, and estimates of the resistance of landscapes to human disturbance, on the other. This provides a basis for compiling maps depicting various levels of environmental disturbance. Examples of such maps (of environmental conditions within the USSR) compiled at the Institute of Geography at a scale of 1:8,000,000 are described. Translated by Larry Richardson, Glendale, CA 91202 from: Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, seriya geograficheskaya, 1990, No. 4, pp. 61-70.

Two leading Soviet delegates to an international conference on the role of polar regions in global environmental change (Fairbanks, Alaska, June 1990) outline key issues and new research directions discussed at the conference. Seven high‐priority interdisciplinary problems were identified as warranting future intensive work: marine and continental ecosystems’ reactions to external influences, the role of wetlands in biogeochemical circulation, the dynamics of marine biota in ice‐edge environments, effects of glaciers and ice sheets on ocean level fluctuations, water circulation in the Arctic, chemistry and dynamics of the Arctic atmosphere, and interactions within the ocean‐ice‐atmosphere system.

This monograph discusses the results of scientific research within a program studying the direct and inverse relationships between sea ice, snow, and glaciers on the one hand and the atmosphere and ocean on the other. It was written by leading specialists in the field of glaciology. The questions examined include the climatic role of existing and former glaciers, snow cover, and sea ice; in particular, the effect of glaciers of different types on the air above them is assessed and a method of monitoring climatic change at different levels, based on data on the external mass exchange of glaciers, is proposed. Geomorphological and climatic effects of the interaction of glaciers with the ocean in the zone of the continental margins are examined. The theory of the relationship between the world ocean and global climate is discussed. New reconstructions are presented for the last glaciation and for former ice‐dammed lakes in the northeastern USSR.

The World Atlas of Snow and Ice Resources, scheduled for publication in the late 1980s, is an extensive cartographic summary of current knowledge about snow and ice. Roughly 750 maps organized unde...

The first results of glaciological research carried out from the orbital space station Salyut‐6 are discussed. The studies included visual observations by cosmonauts and post‐mission analysis of photographs of snow cover and glaciers. The glacierized Pamir Mountains were used as an experimental area. Cosmonauts on the Salyut‐6 examined the area with regard to the amount of snow cover on the ground; observations permitted the forecasting of glacier surges and also revealed evidence of past advances. The observations also showed runoff from glacier‐dammed lakes. The studies of glacier dynamics on the Northern and Southern Patagonian Plateau, South America, showed abrupt changes in the termini of the O'Higgins, Moreno and Braggen glaciers. This pronounced activity is induced by the great glacial energy of Patagonia and by the interaction of floating glacier termini with water.

The components of the water‐ice budget of Antarctica are analyzed on the basis of available Soviet and foreign data. According to a newly constructed map, annual snow accumulation in Antarctica averages 15.6 g/cm2, or 2,000 km3 of water. Several ice domes have been identified in East Antarctica proceeding from the stable relation between accumulation and absolute surface elevation. The computed ice losses (in km3 per year) are: 10 ±5 through glacial runoff, 0 for evaporation‐condensation, 20 ± 10 through snow removal by the wind, 50 ± 20 through ice melting at the bedrock, 320 ± X through bottom melting of ice shelves, and 2,000 ± 720 through iceberg calving. The amount of precipitation falling over Antarctica exceeds by 1.5% its accumulation on the ice sheet. The low accuracy of individual components of the budget does not permit a categorical conclusion to be made regarding its sign.

A 200‐m ice core obtained in 1976 on the Lomonosov Plateau in Spitsbergen is compared with isotope profiles obtained at the Camp Century and Crete stations on Greenland and on Devon Island as well ...

This article examines the objectives, structure, content, and scientific significance of three new major world atlases being prepared for publication by the Institute of Geography of the USSR Academy of Sciences in cooperation with other organizations. Translated from: Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, seriya geograficheskaya, 1988, No. 3, pp. 22-30 by Jay K. Mitchell, PlanEcon, Inc., Washington, DC 20005.

After a brief history of earlier endeavors at international cooperation in the Arctic, the article presents a brief account of the proceedings of the Conference of Arctic‐Rim Countries, held in Leningrad in 1988. The proposals of each of the major sections of the conference are summarized and the expected benefits from the creation of IASC (the International Arctic Scientific Committee) are outlined.

The meaning of glaciosphere in the environmental “atmosphere— ocean—land‐glaciation”; system is analyzed. The need to include observations of glacier dynamics into environmental monitoring, and several global glaciology problems outside the scope of this science alone are discussed.

According to the data of glaciologists, a global warming of the climate may occur in the next 40–50 years. A change in the glaciation of mountains at temperate latitudes in Eurasia, on Arctic islands, in Greenland, and in East and West Antarctica is forecast on this basis. The article is published as a scientific discussion and the conclusions derived are not indisputable. [The paper may be read in conjunction with one by M. I. Budyko et al., “Impending climatic change,”; Soviet Geography September 1979, pp. 395–411.]

The water resources, mass exchange, and the areas of ice formation zones in the glacier systems of the Arctic are estimated anew. Accumulation is determined from air temperature at the alimentation boundary. The time of the mass turnover in glacier systems and its role in the ocean regime are computed. A relation is established between the morphology of glaciation and atmospheric circulation. The role of the Greenland ice sheet in the hydrometeorological regime of the Arctic is stressed.