Billions In Russian Oil & Gas $$$ Piled Atop Siberian Permafrost That May Not Support It Much Longer
The region’s Minister of Natural Resources, Aleksandr Kalinin, admits that global warming could have dramatic consequences for Yamal. In an address, Kalinin said that his region has «the most pessimistic outlooks as outlined by the climatologists,» and made clear that consequences would be «horrendous» if the ground loses the ability to carry infrastructure and industrial plants.
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Field development is accompanied by a need for infrastructure, and for the Yamal-Nenets region it is the Northern Latitudinal Passage that is the most prestigious of all infrastructure projects. The projected railway line will establish a powerful connection between Northwest Russia and West Siberia and later also include a link to the Arctic port of Sabetta. The new projects include not only production rigs, pipelines and infrastructure, but also processing plants. That raises the potential local risks for the developers.
Studies provided by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) leaves no doubt about the seriousness of the situation. The Panel’s latest climate report says that the likelihood of an Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in summer would be at least once per decade with 2°C global temperature increase. A similar picture is drawn up by the Russian researchers working in federal meteorological institute Roshydromet.
According to Roshydromet, average temperatures in the Kara Sea have since 1998 increased with as much as 4,95 C degrees. Ice is retreating and the permafrost melting. Data from measuring points in the country’s European parts of the Arctic in 2017 showed an average shrinking of the permafrost layer by about 10 cm. In 2018, the average temperature increase in the polar parts of the country was between 2-4 degrees above normal, a recent sum-up from Roshydromet reads.
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https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/node/4894