In 1994, scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences were invited to visit a large, beautiful lake in northern Mongolia, Lake Hovsgol, and to join Mongolian and Russian scientists to study its biota. The project culminated in the description of many new species and numerous scientific publications, including the first book on the lake published in English, an effort financed by the National Science Foundation Partnerships for International Research and Education.
In 1998, the Mongolian government approved Lake Hovsgol National Park as its first long-term ecological research site for the monitoring of environmental changes, encouraging continued research efforts by international scientists.
From 2002 to 2006, we began to recognize how much the climate of this region was changing. The whole-country analysis of temperature records indicated that Mongolia has warmed 2.14 degrees Celsius, or 3.85 degrees Fahrenheit, since the 1940s. In contrast, total precipitation has changed very little.
These results prompted me and colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania to study the effects of these climatic changes, and in 2007 the Partnerships for International Research and Education-Mongolia project was born. This project focuses on three major components: experimental research on the effects of warming and precipitation changes on steppe and forest habitats of northern Mongolia, analysis of meteorological data from nearby monitoring sites, and interviews with nomadic herders to gauge their perceptions of these recent environmental changes. Read the full report here.
Source: by Clyde E. Goulden and Laura Fox, The New York Times.
