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Objectives: We investigated the clinical outcomes of a few initial cases of interior knee arthroscopic surgical repair conducted in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Methods: Arthroscopic knee repair patients were recruited into a single-arm trial study and followed up to the third month post-surgically. Subjects were the first cohort of all-inside arthroscopic knee surgery at the National Trauma and Orthopedics Research Center (NTORC) of Mongolia. We examined the subjects by tests including MRI prior to surgery, and complete knee evaluation including symptoms, functionality, and local examinations at the baseline and the third month after surgery. Pairwise statistical methods including McNemar Test and T-test were used. Additionally, Pearson’s R Correlations tests were used. Results: Forty-nine knee arthroscopic surgery patients were included for analysis. Knee pain, some local symptoms during recovery, and functionality significantly improved post-surgically, (p < 0.051). Arthroscopic knee interventions including anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, local partial meniscectomy, and meniscal repair were predominantly conducted, strongly reflecting the knee MRI scan findings. Surgical site infections were absent in this cohort of patients. Age was correlated with post-surgical pain (p < 0.050). Conclusion: Knee arthroscopic outcomes for symptom alleviation and recovery of function were satisfactory at 3 months of follow-up in this study. We conclude that we enjoyed an excellent experience with all-inside knee arthroscopy in a central Asian lower-middle income country (LMIC) setting with younger and middle-aged patients. Older age Mongolians may present with post-surgical pain more often than these subjects.

Abstract Warming in Central Asia has been accelerating over the past three decades and is expected to intensify through the end of this century. Here, we develop a summer temperature reconstruction for western Mongolia spanning eight centuries (1269–2004 C.E.) using delta blue intensity measurements from annual rings of Siberian larch. A significant cooling response is observed in the year following major volcanic events and up to five years post‐eruption. Observed summer temperatures since the 1990s are the warmest over the past eight centuries, an observation that is also well captured in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) climate model simulations. Projections for summer temperature relative to observations suggest further warming of between ∼3°C and 6°C by the end of the century (2075–2099 cf. 1950–2004) under the representative concentration pathways 4.5 and 8.5 (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) emission scenarios. We conclude that projected future warming lies beyond the range of natural climate variability for the past millennium as estimated by our reconstruction.

Recent incidences of mass livestock mortality, known as dzud, have called into question the sustainability of pastoral nomadic herding, the cornerstone of Mongolian culture. A total of 20 million head of livestock perished in the mortality events of 2000–2002, and 2009–2010. To mitigate the effects of such events on the lives of herders, international agencies such as the World Bank are taking increasing interest in developing tailored market-based solutions like index-insurance. Their ultimate success depends on understanding the historical context and underlying causes of mortality. In this paper we examine mortality in 21 Mongolian aimags (provinces) between 1955 and 2013 in order to explain its density independent cause(s) related to climate variability. We show that livestock mortality is most strongly linked to winter (November–February) temperatures, with incidences of mass mortality being most likely to occur because of an anomalously cold winter. Additionally, we find prior summer (July–September) drought and precipitation deficit to be important triggers for mortality that intensifies the effect of upcoming winter temperatures on livestock. Our density independent mortality model based on winter temperature, summer drought, summer precipitation, and summer potential evaporanspiration explains 48.4% of the total variability in the mortality dataset. The Mongolian index based livestock insurance program uses a threshold of 6% mortality to trigger payouts. We find that on average for Mongolia, the probability of exceedance of 6% mortality in any given year is 26% over the 59 year period between 1955 and 2013.

The larch forests on the permafrost in northeastern Mongolia are located at the southern limit of the Siberian taiga forest, which is one of the key regions for evaluating climate change effects and responses of the forest to climate change. We conducted long-term monitoring of seasonal and interannual variations in hydrometeorological elements, energy, and carbon exchange in a larch forest (48°15′24′′N, 106°51′3′′E, altitude: 1338 m) in northeastern Mongolia from 2010 to 2012. The annual air temperature and precipitation ranged from −0.13 °C to −1.2 °C and from 230 mm to 317 mm. The permafrost was found at a depth of 3 m. The dominant component of the energy budget was the sensible heat flux (H) from October to May (H/available energy [R a] = 0.46; latent heat flux [LE]/R a = 0.15), while it was the LE from June to September (H/R a = 0.28, LE/R a = 0.52). The annual net ecosystem exchange (NEE), gross primary production (GPP), and ecosystem respiration (RE) were −131 to −257 gC m−2 y−1, 681–703 gC m−2 y−1, and 423–571 gC m−2 y−1, respectively. There was a remarkable response of LE and NEE to both vapor pressure deficit and surface soil water content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In arid and semi-arid regions of the world, such as Mongolia, the future of water resources under a warming climate is of particular concern. The influence of increasing temperatures on precipitation is difficult to predict because precipitation trends in coming decades could have a high degree of spatial variability. In this study, we applied a rotated principal component analysis (RPCA) to a network of 20 tree-ring chronologies across central Mongolia from 1790 to 1994 to evaluate spatial hydroclimatic variability and to place recent variability in the context of the past several centuries. The RPCA results indicate that the network consists of four tree-growth anomaly regions, which were found to be relatively stable through time and space. Correlation analyses reveal spatial linkages between the tree-growth anomalies and instrumental data, where annual streamflow variability was strongly associated with tree-growth anomalies from their respective regions from 1959 to 1994 (r =0.52–0.64, p <0.05). This study highlights the extent of spatial variability in hydroclimate across central Mongolia and emphasizes the value of using tree-ring networks in locations with limited instrumental records. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We are reporting the first dendrochronological dating in Mongolia; the building history of two temples in the Mandal Monastery, Central Bayankhongor Province. Twenty core samples were collected from the Mandal East Temple and 25 disks from Mandal School Temple. All species of sampled woods were larch (Larix sibirica). The chronologies of two buildings crossdated well with a timberline larch chronology of Suulyin Bagtraa which is located 60km north of Mandal. The dendro dating indicates that the Mandal East Temple was constructed after the end of the growing season of 1758 or very soon thereafter. The Mandal School Temple was built after the growing season of 1867. The former temple proved to be one of the original buildings of Mandal Monastery. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]