Scientists have discovered 30 previously unknown species of invertebrates and insects in areas of the Central Caucasus glaciers that have thawed due to global warming. According to the press service of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a total of 438 species of invertebrates live in the areas studied.
“A group of Russian scientists conducted work to assess the spatial and temporal changes in taxocenoses (communities) of various groups of invertebrates in areas of former glacier beds aged from 0 to 170 years in the Central Caucasus (Tseisky, Bezengi, Kashkatash). 438 species were discovered, 30 of which were new to science,” the press service noted.
The expedition studied changes in the invertebrate population caused by warming, melting ice and the retreat of glaciers upward. Scientists were interested in, in particular: do more heat-loving species displace glacier inhabitants, or do they complement each other, settling nearby. As it turned out, “young surfaces freed from ice” are very quickly and almost simultaneously populated by inhabitants of warmer and lower areas – but at the same time, their composition undergoes major changes.
The largest glacier in the Elbrus massif is Bolshoy Azau (Yandex Maps)
There are also species that are still unknown to science – such as, for example, a new species of springtails of the genus Desoria and a new species of midges, found on several glaciers. They live only on ice and near its edge. All ticks that parasitize or travel on periglacial ground beetles also belong to the species that have not yet been described.
“We have discovered a whole world of cold-loving, unknown living creatures, whose small size makes them invisible to mountain tourists and climbers. With the disappearance of glaciers, the habitats of these species will disappear – the ice surfaces themselves, damp cold wastelands, riverside pebbles. However, in the Central Caucasus they still have a significant reserve of altitude,” said the project manager, head of the synecology laboratory of the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IPEE RAS) Olga Makarova.
Glaciologists from the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, zoologists from the Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences with botanists from the Biological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the North Ossetian Reserve, and zoologists-taxmen from various organizations, cities, and countries participated in the expedition. The study was the first in Russia, and the results were published in the international journal Caucasiana.
Therapist and parasitologist Eduard Bartuli did not rule out that mosquitoes and ticks from glaciers could carry some diseases and emphasized that their danger lies precisely in the type of diseases they carry.
“They may be completely new, still unknown to the world, like covid-19 until recently.”
“If these are wild mosquitoes and ticks, then this is possible. If even ordinary ticks carry encephalitis, then these can definitely transmit some diseases. They can be completely new, still unknown to the world, like covid-19 until recently,” he said.
As for melting glaciers and global warming, according to the parasitologist, the world is already changing noticeably.
“Nature shows that there are more floods and natural disasters. The melting of glaciers is due to the fact that the earth’s interior is being pumped out and the earth is becoming lighter and is more attracted to the sun,” he said.
“New” insect species, according to Bartuli, are not new at all, he noted that they existed, but no one knew about them. I think there will be new diseases against which we will have to invent medicines,” the specialist is sure.
In the southern regions of European Russia, there are processes of reduction of glaciation in the Caucasus Mountains and desertification. This was reported by Pavel Toropov, associate professor of the geography department of Moscow State University and candidate of geographical sciences, in an interview with the correspondent of the Krasnaya Vesna news agency.
Answering the question whether the drought in Stavropol Krai is connected with the process of desertification of the region, the scientist explained that these processes have different scales, but are interconnected. The drought is connected with the sequence or duration of anticyclones in the region, blocking the possibility of precipitation.
Toropov noted that regular annual drought over 20-30 years could cause desertification. Russian and foreign scientists estimate an increase in the frequency of anticyclones in the southern regions of European Russia and a “very noticeable” desertification process.
There are more than 100 meteorological sites in the North Caucasus that record temperature increases since the mid-20th century. Thus, since 1965, the average annual air temperature has increased by 0.9ºС throughout the entire territory. Since 1985, the Caucasus has seen an increase in both the average annual air temperature and its maximum and minimum, which leads to a rise in the snow line: the glacier accumulation zone becomes smaller, causing them to decrease in volume and area. The rate of warming is increasing: from 1965 to 1995, the air temperature increased by 0.3ºС, from 1995 to 2020 – by 0.6ºС.
According to the International GLIMS (Global Land Ice Measurements from Space) project, in the 1960s, the area of mountain glaciation of the Greater Caucasus Range in Russia was 1,101 km2, and in 2019-2020 – 729 km2. It is safe to say that the increase in average annual temperature (by about 1 ° C from 1960 to 2020) led to the melting of more than 370 km2 of ice. The number of glaciers has also changed: in 1960, there were 1,449 glaciers, by 2020 there were 1,415. The largest glacier massif in Russia, Elbrus, was chosen to monitor the impact of climate on mountain glaciation.
The position of the tongue of the Bolshoy Azau glacier in a photograph by Moritz Dechy in 1884 and a photograph taken from approximately the same place in 2021 (Yandex Maps)
Meteorological data for Elbrus have been obtained from the Terskol weather station since 1951. A clear trend can be seen for average summer temperatures: from 1951 to 1977 the temperature dropped from 13ºС to 10.8ºС, while after 1977 it has been continuously rising.
Currently, the average air temperature during the summer period reaches 14ºС. There is a strong melting of ice, while in the winter period the glaciers do not have time to accumulate enough mass. Over the past 20 years, from 1999 to 2020, the area of Elbrus glaciers has decreased from 123.77 km2 to 110.19 km2.
Space images clearly show the retreat of the Elbrus ice massif: the tongues of individual glaciers “rise” up the valley, leaving behind glacial lakes, moraine ridges and rounded boulders.
The largest and most studied glacier of the Elbrus massif, Bolshoy Azau, is retreating. Its studies began in the mid-19th century. Until about 1885, the Bolshoy and Maly Azau glaciers were a single whole with a single accumulation area, numerous intraglacial flows, and a common tongue. Ice degradation began, and Maly Azau formed into a separate glacier. After 1887, Bolshoy and Maly Azau no longer grew together.
