A polar bear on ice floes off Russia’s Franz Josef Land archipelago.
Photographer: Ekaterina Anisimova/AFP/Getty ImagesClimate Politics
Climate Science in Arctic ‘Broken’ as US and Europe Isolate Russia
Collaboration between Western and Russian scientists stopped after the invasion of Ukraine and is still nearly impossible, putting vital research in jeopardy.
Irina Panyushkina is a dendrochronologist — a scientist who studies tree-ring dating to understand past environmental conditions — at the University of Arizona. In early 2022 she was planning to do summer fieldwork in Siberia, for her research on the links between climate change, Russia’s freshwater systems and Arctic ice formation. Her work had already been delayed years by Covid-19.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and it slammed to a halt again.