The Rossiya Segodnya international news agency hosted a press conference on 4 December, featuring Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yuri Balega; professor at the Tomsk Polytechnic University and professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ International Arctic Research Center, Igor Semiletov; Professor Örjan Gustafsson, member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Professor of Stockholm University, and Tommaso Tesi, a leading research fellow at the Arctic Centre for the University of Bologna.
Conference participants discussed the impact that human-induced methane emissions have on the process of global warming in the Arctic and how soon the melting permafrost will create an increase in global concentrations of the so-called greenhouse gas.
Scientists also touched on global warming's affect on the strategic exploration of the Arctic shelf.
The conference was held on the heels of a scientific expedition carried out by scientists aboard the 'Akademik Mstislav Keldysh' vessel to the eastern section of the Arctic Ocean. The data obtained during the expedition reveals a significant increase in the rate of the degradation of the subsea permafrost. The results of the expedition are assisting experts to predict the process of submarine permafrost melt as a means of assessing the environmental situation in the Eastern Arctic,as well as how it will affect global sea level rise.
