Earth Cryosphere Institute

The process of urbanization of the oil and gas production complex in the north of Western Siberia in the 1960s1980s was marked by the active introduction of scientifically based approaches designed to minimize the negative effects of the Arctic and sub-Arctic climate on residents of new cities under construction. One of the serious problems in implementing project approaches to the formation of the urban environment in the Arctic was that they were only capable of predicting the specifics of the economic, social and environmental development of the new city in the relatively short term. The main aim of this article is to analyze the effectiveness of the urban planning theory developed by the LenZNIIEP team on the case of the city of Nadym, founded in the early 1970s. The study is based on the research work of LenZNIIEP. In order to obtain subjective assessments of the development and use of the urban environment of Nadym, a series of thematic interviews were conducted with experts and residents of the city. In addition, recent scientific literature on the topic of research has been analyzed. During the study, the features of design solutions and the evolution of the development of four urban planning subsystems of Nadym were considered. The task of urban planning physics was to minimize the discomfort caused to the city’s population by the harsh landscape and climatic conditions. An important result of the development of urban ecology was the successful greening of open urban spaces in the Arctic climate. The main task of urban planning psychology was to create color schemes for buildings that are comfortable for Arctic conditions. The tasks of urban planning sociology included the adaptation of the urban environment to the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the young Arctic city. The case of Nadym demonstrates that effective implementation of all urban planning subsystems can mitigate the effects of the harsh Arctic climate on the city residents and improve quality of their life. At the same time, due to the paradigm change in urban development of the Russian Arctic, the development of an “adaptive” approach is becoming increasingly relevant, as it was designed to identify and implement individual strategies for organizing a comfortable urban environment, taking into account the characteristics of local natural and climatic conditions.

Understanding the spatial dynamics and inequality of human water use is essential for achieving sustainable water management. Although previous studies have examined the spatial evolution of regional water use, comprehensive assessments that couple sectoral decomposition with long-term (> 50 years) national-scale dynamics remain limited. To address this gap, we compiled multi-sectoral water use data from 1970 to 2020 and analyzed spatial trends and inequalities in China's water use using the center-of-gravity approach and Gini coefficients. Our results reveal distinct directional shifts among sectors: irrigation and industrial water use moved northeastward and southwestward, respectively, while total water use exhibited minimal spatial displacement. Water-use inequality declined from high to moderate levels before 2000 and has since stabilized. Irrigation water use dominated both the spatial redistribution and inequality of total water use, driven primarily by changes in irrigated area and industrial scale. Inter-provincial disparities accounted for the largest share of overall water-use inequality. These findings offer new insights into the spatial evolution of China's water use and provide an empirical basis for promoting more equitable and sustainable water allocation policies.

Conducting polymer-based thermoelectric composites have emerged as a promising candidate for flexible, lightweight, and cost-effective energy conversion systems, addressing the ever growing demand for sustainable energy solutions. Researchers have concentrated on optimizing thermoelectric properties by incorporating nanostructures, hybrid fillers, and doping methods, which enhance electrical conductivity alongside Seebeck coefficients while minimizing thermal conductivity. Further, novel processing techniques, including solution casting, melt blending, and surface functionalization, are employed to ensure uniform filler dispersion and enhance the mechanical flexibility of polymer-based composites, thereby paving their way in flexible and wearable thermoelectric devices. This review covers various aspects, such as different models describing charge transport, diverse array of nano-fillers, and the factors affecting thermoelectric properties of polymer nanocomposites, synthetic schemes, doping, and post-treatment strategies to maximize the power factor along with recent breakthroughs in diverse applications, namely, electrical, optoelectronics, electronics, sensing, and biomedical. Various research gaps, potential issues along with possible solutions, and future prospects have been elaborated at length and would assist the researchers for a better understanding and research direction.

The diversity of water clusters is due not only to the different hydrogen (H-) bond network topology but also to the different arrangement of hydrogen atoms (protons) in the H-bonds. The polyhedral shape is typical for the smallest water clusters. Gas hydrate cavities are also polyhedral, which increases the practical interest in studying the properties of polyhedral water clusters. For theory, the structural homogeneity of these clusters, in which all molecules are in equivalent positions, is of particular importance. It is no coincidence that a simple discrete model of intermolecular interactions was initially developed for polyhedral water clusters. The model of strong and weak effective H-bonds (SWEB model) allows classifying the entire set of proton configurations by energy. This article is devoted to the study of the energetics of proton configurations of all three-coordinated water polyhedra with the number of molecules less than 20. The peculiarity of this article is that the selection of candidates for the lowest-energy configurations is carried out using the discrete approach, taking into account the number of the most preferred types of H-bonds, a simplified estimate of the total dipole moment and the number of molecules located in the planes of the square faces.

The identification of spatial soil moisture patterns is of high importance for various applications in high latitude permafrost regions, but challenging with common remote sensing approaches due to high landscape heterogeneity. Seasonal thawing and freezing of near-surface soil lead to subsidence-heave cycles in the presence of ground ice, which can exhibit magnitudes of several centimeters. Our investigations document higher Sentinel-1 InSAR seasonal subsidence rates for locations with higher near-surface soil moisture compared to dryer ones. Based on this, we demonstrate that the relationship of thawing degree days -a measure of seasonal heating -and subsidence signals can be interpreted to assess spatial variations of near-surface soil moisture. A range of challenges, however, need to be addressed. We discuss the implications of using different sources of temperature data for deriving thawing degree days on the results. Atmospheric effects must be considered, as simple spatial filtering can suppress large-scale permafrost-related subsidence signals and lead to the underestimation of displacement values, making GACOS-corrected results preferable for the tested sites. Seasonal subsidence rate retrieval which considers these aspects provides a valuable tool for distinguishing between wet and dry landscape features, which is relevant for permafrost degradation monitoring in Arctic lowland permafrost regions. Spatial resolution constraints, however, remain for smaller typical permafrost features which drive wet versus dry conditions such as high and low centred polygons.

The mitigation of plastic pollution constitutes one of the major challenges worldwide. Innovative research approaches have been solicited to improve the properties of fuel derived from plastic pyrolysis. The present study looks at the effect on the chemical composition of pyrolysis oil of the application in situ of a mixed metal oxide of titanium and aluminum in vacuum pyrolysis of mixed waste polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyethylene terephthalate. The experiment was performed at process parameters of 250 °C temperature, 79.9 Kpa vacuum pressure, and 1:10 catalyst-to-feedstock ratio, first without the mixed metal oxide (parent reaction) and then with the mixed metal oxide (modified reaction). The results showed that the presence of combined titanium and aluminum oxides in the reaction medium accounted for the presence of alkyl-substituted cycloalkanes at an area% of 33.97% in the liquid product, and a calorific value of 11,950 cal/gm was reported for the modified reaction. The parent reaction produced higher liquid and gaseous yields of 28.3% and 43.1% respectively while the modified reaction produced a greater percentage of char (23.8%) and residual wax(36.0%). The fuel properties of the liquid products obtained were equally determined.

Abstract In geoarchaeological studies, there is an issue with distinguishing between natural and anthropogenic signals in pedological paleoarchives. With the pedostratigraphy of the Upper Paleolithic site of Kostenki 14, this issue is reflected by problems with the determination of features of pedogenic and pyrogenic processes. This issue was addressed by means of a thorough analysis of the magnetic properties of paleosols accompanied by micromorphological observations. Most of the humic samples were shown to be a result of pedogenesis, but two samples (a Paleolithic hearth sample and a sample from paleosol IIc) had features of intensely burnt material. The difference in the typical intensity of large‐scale (natural or human‐induced) and local‐scale anthropogenic fire allowed for suggesting that the magnetic properties of the burnt sample were the result of an anthropogenically controlled fire event, that is, a hearth. This study shows that the magnetic properties of paleosols can be used to differentiate anthropogenic activity, in particular—burning, from pedogenic processes. This indicator is especially helpful in finding disturbed combustion features when the hearth structure is lost. This methodology used to demonstrate the local human‐induced pyrogenic effect at the Upper Paleolithic site can contribute to the discussion of the niche construction effect of human activities in the Pleistocene.

Abstract. From 2015 to 2020, using the spectral gradient radiometric method, the possibility of the frozen/thawed (FT) state identification of tundra soil was investigated based on Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) and Global Change Observation Mission – Water Satellite 1 (GCOM-W1) satellite observations of 10 test sites located in the Arctic regions of Canada, Finland, Russia, and the USA. It is shown that the spectral gradients of brightness temperature and reflectivity (measured in the frequency range from 1.4 to 36.5 GHz with horizontal polarization, a determination coefficient from 0.775 to 0.834, a root-mean-square error from 6.6 to 10.7 d and a bias from −3.4 to +6.5 d) make it possible to identify the FT state of the tundra topsoil. The spectral gradient method has a higher accuracy with respect to the identification of the FT state of tundra soils than single-frequency methods based on the calculation of polarization index.

A kinetic model of the process of gas hydrate formation from ice that considers the gas pressure drop caused by this process is presented. This model is based on the diffusion equation. The issues during the formation of gas hydrate from ice powder and that from a flat ice layer are considered separately. For each of these problems, a solution in the framework of a quasi-stationary approximation is obtained, allowing for the calculation of the gas pressure drop in the gas phase. The calculated data are compared with available experimental data on the kinetics of CO2 hydrate formation from pure ice powder and ice powder with the addition of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) at a mass concentration of 240 ppm: the calculated and experimental curves of CO2 pressure drop are compared with each other. From this comparison, the values of the diffusion coefficient of CO2 through a layer of CO2 hydrate formed from pure ice and ice with the addition of SDS at a mass concentration of 240 ppm were determined. Based on these values, it was found that SDS molecules present in the gas hydrate affect the rate of gas diffusion through the gas hydrate layer.