INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Glaciers on Russia's Far East Kamchatka Peninsula have shrunk by over a third since the mid-20th century, the state-run TASS news
Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences.The rate of retreat of the ice caps in the northern Sredinny Range from 2002 to
2017 was 4.3 times higher than from 1950 to 2002.The researchers also noted a summertime temperature increase of 0.3 degrees Celsius per
decade in the northern and northwestern parts of Kamchatka as well as a decrease in winter precipitation, factors that have likely
contributed to the glaciers' retreat.These areas of the peninsula have experienced higher-than-normal levels of solar radiation from May to
Kamchatka to the "expansion of the tropics," a phenomenon in which tropical zones advance toward the Earth's poles due to human-induced
climate change.Since early April, several Russian regions in the Urals and western Siberia have been battling devastating floods, which
experts warn could become more frequent as climate change progresses.
