Tornadoes, tornadoes and hurricanes in Russia: why are there more of them?

Three dead, a dozen injured, dozens of damaged houses and fallen trees, disrupted power supply. The beginning of August in Russia turned out to be fruitful for hurricanes, tornadoes and tornadoes. What is their reason, the climatologist, head of the climate program of the World Wildlife Fund Alexei Kokorin told the MIR 24 TV channel.

– Where do tornadoes, tornadoes and hurricanes come from in Russia?

Alexei Kokorin: And tornadoes, and even tornadoes, which are much stronger than tornadoes, have always been in Russia, and even reached the Vologda and Arkhangelsk regions. Another thing is that now they have become more frequent and stronger. Natural processes, due to human impact, global warming, that is, some kind of impact on the climate system, swayed more. Therefore, we see not something unprecedented, but more frequent and stronger.

Tornadoes, tornadoes and hurricanes in Russia: why are there more of them?

WORLD 24 More videos SHARE Tweet SHARE SHARE MAIL What else to see

A criminal case on forest destruction was initiated in Orenburg due to a large fire

WORLD 24
Nordwind plane was forced to land in Yekaterinburg due to hydraulic system failure

WORLD 24
Volunteers in the Yakut village of Kylayy try to stop a wildfire by counter-firing

WORLD 24
A tornado struck the Russian village of Rogozh

WORLD 24
A natural fire in Yakutia captured 100 hectares of forest and came close to the village of Kylayy

WORLD 24
Tourists do not plan to interrupt their vacation in Turkey due to fires. EXCLUSIVE

WORLD 24
A bus with Russian tourists capsized in Turkey: four people died

WORLD 24
The sun was gone: because of forest fires in Yakutia, it became dark as night during the day

WORLD 24
How to distinguish between real and fake utility bills?

WORLD 24
Amphibious aircraft resumed extinguishing fires in Yakutia

WORLD 24
Stop the fire: 15 wildfires were extinguished in Yakutia per day

WORLD 24
The girl stole a 40-kg tub with a tree from the governor's garden in Yekaterinburg

WORLD 24
Flooding in India caused a lot of destruction

WORLD 24
Fire in Nizhny Novgorod: open burning fought for five hours

WORLD 24
In Nizhny Novgorod, there was a fire in the hostel of a medical university

WORLD 24

Click to Expand Repeat Video

A criminal case on forest destruction was initiated in Orenburg due to a large fire. There are eight SNTs in the danger zone. Due to a large fire in Orenburg, an emergency regime was introduced.

The plane Nordwind was forced to land in Yekaterinburg due to the failure of the hydraulic system. There were 148 passengers on board, including 41 children.

Volunteers in the Yakut village of Kylayy are trying to stop a natural fire by counter-burning. People are hindered by a strong wind, which drives the flames directly to the village.

FOLLOWING

– If we talk about this summer – constantly climatic and temperature records, which regions may now be under the threat of a repetition of such natural phenomena?

Alexey Kokorin: Usually these are the regions of the south of Russia, the steppe regions. Tornadoes are typical for hot steppe regions, while they are quite humid. Not in the desert, but, say, in the state of Oklahoma, widely known throughout the world as a kind of generator of tornadoes and tornadoes, there it is a much more serious disaster, we have much less, we also have it. Moreover, sometimes these phenomena break through to the north, and even quite far away.

Tatarstan is also not the southern part of Russia, but special attention should be paid to the black earth and steppe zone.

– How predictable are such phenomena?

Alexey Kokorin: Tornadoes are a very small phenomenon, they are tens of meters, maybe up to a hundred. Enough overheated surface, certain conditions, and that's it – you already have a tornado. It is difficult to predict them. Rather, they can be tracked using radars, warning that there is a tornado, but there are few of them. A tornado is a completely different phenomenon. A tornado grows from below, and a tornado – from above, when you have a certain mesocyclone, a certain atmospheric phenomenon several kilometers in size, this is a prerequisite. If there is still a certain combination of different winds in height, at different heights, then tornadoes are formed. For mesocyclones, you can probably follow, and you can predict, try to predict them for a particular area. These are other scales, tornadoes are already a few kilometers.

– If special shelters are being built in the same alley of tornadoes, then what about the residents of central Russia?

Alexey Kokorin: If the buildings are very dilapidated, this is bad. You have to understand that the power of what is happening in the South of the United States and in our country are completely different things. As a rule, we just have a tornado. But be ready for this, understand that if you see a tornado, especially a big tornado, do not immediately shout “tornado”, at least you have to lie on the ground, get out of the dilapidated building. I do not think that we can have such power that a person who is simply lying flat on the ground can be lifted and thrown somewhere, although there were such cases, and they were both at the beginning of the 20th century and in the middle, and in the distant past.

Detailed investigations are carried out by the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences: maps of the frequency of tornadoes and tornadoes have been built there, and the trajectories have been traced. Looking at this map, you can glean a lot of information, where are the more dangerous areas, where the less dangerous.

– In connection with climate change, will we increasingly encounter such phenomena?

Alexey Kokorin: Of course. Another thing, one must understand that this is not a tenfold growth, maybe two or three times. Here, rather, more uneven precipitation has a greater impact. If earlier we had heavy precipitation – five light rains and two showers, and even these showers give the same amount of precipitation not in two hours, but in 20 peak minutes, plus strong winds that tear off leaves and branches, clogging the sewer system.

Urban infrastructure needs to prepare for a more nervous climate, nervous precipitation. Tornadoes will probably be somewhat exotic. Uneven precipitation has a downside. If they are absent for a long time and hot weather, this is a high fire hazard of forests. Let not in the steppe zone, but in the northern, but the other reverse side of the coin, and also negative. There is a whole complex of phenomena, and you need to adapt to them – this is the number one way. Way number two – with the whole world it is necessary to prevent the worst development of events.

– There are tornado and tornado hunters in the USA who track them, watch them. In Russia, perhaps, to introduce such a service as well?

Alexey Kokorin: Hunters are employees of the American Hydromet, who have a car on special supports (not on wheels, it rises, like a large jeep, it stands on these legs, it is very difficult to lift it), this, of course, is useful for monitoring. I don’t think that our situation is such that the times have come, but it is not excluded. To monitor, there must be a small enough network, there must be enough of these hunters and equipment. This is probably worth going for when the damage is large enough.

If the damage is relatively small, it is logical to think, maybe you need to at least teach people who live in dilapidated and very dilapidated buildings that if there is a very strong wind, then it is better not to be in your dilapidated house. This thing is similar to encephalitis ticks, which spread both to the north and to the south. One of the most important measures is simply to tell children and adults: now you have such a danger, and immediately the risk will decrease.

– What should humanity prepare for? What can humanity do to slow down global climate change or stop it completely?

Alexey Kokorin: First, slow down, then stabilize. It is impossible to go back. At the end of last year, this year, almost all leading countries announced plans to achieve carbon neutrality. China, EU. The USA, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Kazakhstan, a lot of other countries are going to reduce emissions by the second half of the century, the leading ones by 2050 by several times, and the rest are going to be compensated by planting forests. They will be carbon neutral.

There must be some unique conditions for our country to quickly achieve carbon neutrality. The Sakhalin Oblast can do this, so we are conducting an experiment in the Sakhalin Oblast. If this is the case, the estimates show that then we will not fulfill the Paris Agreement anyway, it will be more than two, but somewhere it will be two and a half degrees. If we go to the site of the climatic center of Roshydromet, the main geophysical observatory, in particular, we will see calculations and even forecast maps of a moderate scenario and a scenario when everything went haywire. We will see that the difference is huge in forest fires, in agriculture, and in heat waves that are bad for human health.