SenZible: Living in a 'Refrigerator'!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Living in a 'Refrigerator'!

Living in Siberia is synonymous with living in a refrigerator! The by far most common climate in Siberia is continental subarctic, with the annual average temperature about −5 °C (23 °F) and roughly −25 °C (−13 °F) average in January and +17 °C (62.6 °F) in July, although this varies considerably, with July average about 10 °C at the taiga - tundra ecotone.
Russia vegetation.png

polar desert tundra alpine tundra taiga montane forest
temperate broadleaf forest temperate steppe dry steppe

The Siberian Traps was formed by one of the largest known volcanic events of the last 500 million years of Earth's geological history. The event continued for a million years and is considered the likely cause of the "Great Dying" about 250 million years ago, which is estimated to have killed 90% of species existing at the time.

Siberia (Russian: Сибирь, tr. Sibir' [sʲɪˈbirʲ] ) is a vast region, constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union (USSR) from its beginning, as the preceding Russian Empire conquered it in the 16th century.

Encompassing much of the Eurasian Steppe, the territory of Siberia extends eastward from the Ural Mountains to the watershed between Pacific and Arctic drainage basins, and southward from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and the national borders of both Mongolia and China. It makes up about 77% of Russia's territory (13.1 million square kilometres), but has only 25% of Russia's population (36 million people).

With an area of 13.1 million km² (5.1 million square miles), Siberia makes up roughly 77% of the total area of Russia. Major geographical zones include the West Siberian Plain and the Central Siberian Plateau. Siberia covers almost 10% of Earth's land surface (14,894,000 km²).

]Climate data for Novosibirsk, Siberia's largest city
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average high °C (°F)	-12.2 (10)	-10.3 (13.5)	-2.6 (27.3)	8.1 (46.6)	17.5 (63.5)	24.0 (75.2)	25.7 (78.3)	22.2 (72)	16.6 (61.9)	6.8 (44.2)	-2.9 (26.8)	-8.9 (16)	7.0 (44.6)
Daily mean °C (°F)	-16.2 (2.8)	-14.7 (5.5)	-7.2 (19)	3.2 (37.8)	11.6 (52.9)	18.2 (64.8)	20.2 (68.4)	17.0 (62.6)	11.5 (52.7)	3.4 (38.1)	-6.0 (21.2)	-12.7 (9.1)	2.4 (36.3)
Average low °C (°F)	-20.1 (-4.2)	-19.1 (-2.4)	-11.8 (10.8)	-1.7 (28.9)	5.6 (42.1)	12.3 (54.1)	14.7 (58.5)	11.7 (53.1)	6.4 (43.5)	0.0 (32)	-9.1 (15.6)	-16.4 (2.5)	-2.3 (27.9)
Precipitation mm (inches)	19 (0.75)	14 (0.55)	15 (0.59)	24 (0.94)	36 (1.42)	58 (2.28)	72 (2.83)	66 (2.6)	44 (1.73)	38 (1.5)	32 (1.26)	24 (0.94)	442 (17.4)

Siberia is extraordinarily rich in minerals, containing ores of almost all economically valuable metals—largely because of the absence of Quaternary glaciation outside highland areas. It has some of the world's largest deposits of nickel, gold, lead, coal, molybdenum, gypsum, diamonds, silver and zinc, as well as extensive unexploited resources of oil and natural gas. The Khanty-Mansiysk region is home to 70% of Russia's developed oil fields. Russia contains about 40% of the world's known resources of nickel at the Norilsk deposit in Siberia. Norilsk Nickel is the world's biggest nickel and palladium producer.