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The summer of 2020 recorded a record-breaking flood due to excessive mei-yu rain falling over the Yangtze River Valley (YRV). Using the Lagrangian model FLEXPART, this paper investigates moisture sources and transport processes behind this extreme event. Based on climate data from 1979 to 2019, the air-particle (an infinitesimally small air parcel) trajectories reaching the YRV show sectors that correspond to five main moisture sources: the Indian monsoon region (IND, 27.5% of the total rainfall), the local evaporation (27.4%), the Western Pacific Ocean (WPO, 21.3%), the Eurasian continent (8.5%) and Northeast Asia (4.4%). In the 2020 mei-yu season, moisture from all source regions was above normal except that from Northeast Asia. A record-breaking moisture source from the IND and WPO dominated this extreme mei-yu flood in 2020, which was 1.5 and 1.6 times greater than the climate mean, respectively. This study reveals a significant relationship between the moisture source with three moisture transport processes, i.e., trajectory density, moisture content, and moisture uptake of air-particles. A broad anomalous anticyclonic circulation over the Indo-Northwestern Pacific (Indo-NWP) provides a favorable environment to enhance the moisture transport from the IND and WPO into the YRV. In the 2020 mei-yu season, a record-breaking Indo-NWP anomalous anticyclonic circulation contributed to a higher trajectory density as well as higher moisture content and moisture uptake of air-particles from the IND and WPO regions. This collectively resulted in unprecedented moisture transport from source origins, thus contributing to the mei-yu flood over the YRV in 2020.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched by China in 2013 to increase economic and transport connectivity along the Eurasian continent and beyond, has posed unprecedented environmental and social risks, many of which are transboundary in nature. International legal tools contained in Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) can play an important role in mitigating such transboundary risks across space and time, as well as reduce the negative impacts of large infrastructure projects, such as are being developed under the auspices of the BRI. However, the adoption of MEA policy tools has been very uneven across the continent. Three conventions in particular, the 1991 Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment, the 1998 Aarhus Convention, and the 1992 Helsinki Water Convention (the UNECE MEAs) - have the least amount of ratifications by BRI countries. In this paper we discuss these three conventions and demonstrate their relevance in addressing the transboundary risks of large infrastructure projects which require complex coordination and long-term planning.Extended ratification of these UNECE MEAs by nations along the BRI corridors should significantly assist in positively changing geographies by minimizing BRI environmental risks and threats on a transboundary and national dimension, but simultaneously (i) create a more unified approach towards sustainability across the BRI, (ii) raise involvement (and likely subsequent) support within communities for BRI projects, (iii) help to reduce related economic risks throughout Eurasia.

The coronavirus crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant negative impact on all aspects of the German social market economy. For the first time in history, the crisis was caused by factors of a non-economic nature. They manifested themselves in all economies of the world, including Europe. Since March 2020, the federal and state executive authorities of Germany, along with the introduction of restrictive measures for the population and business, have adopted several large-scale economic and political programmes aimed at preventing bankruptcies of economic entities, preserving jobs and social stability in the country. Along with short-term instruments designed to stop the decline in GDP and give impetus to its growth, the German state pursued an active and coordinated with Brussels structural policy aimed at ensuring an energy and digital transition to a climate-neutral economy, including the overcoming the deficits and problems revealed by the pandemic in the country's economy. To this end, Berlin abandoned the budget surplus policy and switched to large-scale external borrowing to finance programmes to bring economy out of the crisis. The author analyzes the results of the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the economic space of Germany, including aspects of its stress resistance and competitiveness, explores the effectiveness of state policy to counter crisis and assesses the prospects for the development of Russia's leading foreign economic partner in the west of the Eurasian continent. © 2021 Institute of Europe Russian Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

In this study, four machine learning (ML) models (gradient boost decision tree (GBDT), light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM), categorical boosting (CatBoost) and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost)) are used to perform seasonal forecasts for non-monsoonal winter precipitation over the Eurasian continent (30-60°N, 30-105°E) (NWPE). The seasonal forecast results from a traditional linear regression (LR) model and two dynamic models are compared. The ML and LR models are trained using the data for the period of 1979-2010, and then, these empirical models are used to perform the seasonal forecast of NWPE for 2011-2018. Our results show that the four ML models have reasonable seasonal forecast skills for the NWPE and clearly outperform the LR model. The ML models and the dynamic models have skillful forecasts for the NWPE over different regions. The ensemble means of the forecasts including the ML models and dynamic models show higher forecast skill for the NWEP than the ensemble mean of the dynamic-only models. The forecast skill of the ML models mainly benefits from a skillful forecast of the third empirical orthogonal function (EOF) mode (EOF3) of the NWPE, which has a good and consistent prediction among the ML models. Our results also illustrate that the sea ice over the Arctic in the previous autumn is the most important predictor in the ML models in forecasting the NWPE. This study suggests that ML models may be useful tools to help improve seasonal forecasts of the NWPE.

Excavation at three Late Prehistoric Eskimo sites in arctic Alaska has revealed the presence of Venetian glass trade beads in radiocarbon-dated contexts that predate Columbus's discovery of the Western Hemisphere. The bead variety, commonly known as “Early Blue” and “Ichtucknee Plain,” has been confirmed by expert examination and comparative Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA). The beads are present in sites throughout the Caribbean, the eastern coast of Central and North America, and the eastern Great Lakes region, where they are commonly found in sites dating between approximately AD 1550 and 1750, although a diminishing presence continues into the early 1800s. Beads of this variety have not previously been reported from Alaska. Ascribed to Venetian production by their precolumbian age, the beads challenge the currently accepted chronology for the development of their production methodology, availability, and presence in the Americas. In the absence of trans-Atlantic communication, the most likely route these beads traveled from Europe to northwestern Alaska is across Eurasia and over the Bering Strait. This is the first documented instance of the presence of indubitable European materials in prehistoric sites in the Western Hemisphere as the result of overland transport across the Eurasian continent.

The main directions of integration processes in the post-Soviet space are analyzed in the context of their significance for the countries of the region, defined in the article as Eurasia. The essential characteristic of the concepts of “Eurasianism” and “Eurasian integration” is given. Some scientific approaches to the definition of these concepts are also presented. Particular attention is paid to the two leading international structures in the Eurasia region – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Today, the processes of implementing the ideas of Eurasianism and Eurasian integration are associated, first of all, with the development of the EAEU. But the whole picture looks inferior without taking into account the activities of the SCO. This organization aims to implement interaction between European and Asian states, and, therefore, the ideas that underlie Eurasian integration. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization claims to be actively involved in global affairs, and remains one of the most significant forces in the processes taking place in the Eurasian geopolitical space. The ideas of Eurasian integration that arose more than 100 years ago continue to be an integral part of economic and political rapprochement of the peoples of the former USSR. This process itself is not easy due to both external and internal factors. But in any case, it can be stated with confidence: the Eurasian states are trying to create integration associations in various formats, to solve issues of mutual interest with their help. And this process affects most of the states of the Eurasian continent. The future development of both individual states of Eurasia, and the entire continent as a whole, depends on results of the integration processes promoted within the framework of the EAEU and SCO. Acknowledgements. The article has been supported by a grant of the Russian Science Foundation. Project No. 19-18-00165 “Eurasian Ideology as Unifying for the EAEU and SCO Countries”.

Central Asia, located in the hinterland of the Eurasian continent, is characterized with sparse rainfall, frequent droughts and low water use efficiency. Limited water resources have become a key factor restricting the sustainable development of this region. Accurately assessing the efficiency of water resources utilization is the first step to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Central Asia. However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the evaluation of water use efficiency is difficult due to low data availability and poor consistency. To fill this gap, this paper developed a Water Use Efficiency dataset (WUE) based on the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Gross Primary Production (GPP) data and the MODIS evapotranspiration (ET) data. The WUE dataset ranges from 2000 to 2019 with a spatial resolution of 500 m. The agricultural WUE was then extracted based on the Global map of irrigated areas and MODIS land use map. As a complementary, the water use amount per GDP was estimated for each country. The present dataset could reflect changes in water use efficiency of agriculture and other sectors. The published data are available at http://www.dx.doi.org/10.11922/sciencedb.j00076.00012.

The Okinawa Trough is an extensive back-arc basin that was formed by the subduction of the Philippine Sea plate beneath the Eurasian continent. Instances of Zn–Pb–(Cu) mineralization, which are typically associated with volcanism, are commonly found in many of the hydrothermal fields throughout this trough. We analysed the fluid inclusions and helium isotopic compositions of samples collected from the sulphide–sulphate chimneys/mounds in the Iheya North Knoll hydrothermal field in the Middle Okinawa Trough. For fluid inclusions in sphalerite and anglesite, we found that the homogenization temperatures ranged from 288°C to 345°C and 242°C to 370°C, while the salinity values ranged from 5.45 to 10.55 wt.% NaCl equiv. and 6.45 to 8.55 wt.% NaCl equiv., respectively. Microthermometry results from these inclusions yielded temperatures of 330°C–350°C; at these temperatures, seawater may have been boiling during the ore formation process. These data, in addition to measurement of high hydrothermal fluid 3He/4He ratios (6.5 to 7.8 Ra), suggest that the fluid is mainly derived from the back-arc basin basalts (BABBs), and have been mixed with a small amount of seawater. Moreover, the 3He enrichment found in this hydrothermal system indicates that these fluids may be sourced from deeper basaltic magma, rather than strongly degassed rhyolitic magma. Based on these anglesite-hosted fluid inclusions and the results of IODP Expedition 331 in this hydrothermal field, we infer that multiple hydrothermal fluid reservoirs exist beneath the seafloor in this region; the accumulation and migration of various solutions in these reservoirs promote mineralization, and extensive alteration of the host rocks. Mantle-derived He enters the hydrothermal fluid system by basaltic magma degassing. After experiencing fluid mixing, phase separation, and cooling, Pb–Zn–(Cu) minerals ultimately precipitate out of this hydrothermal fluid.

Polar mesocyclones (PMCs) occur frequently over the northern Sea of Japan. In the present study, topographic effects on PMC genesis in this region were investigated using long-term numerical simulations extending over 36 winter seasons. Sensitivity experiments showed that PMC genesis decreases in the part of the northern Sea of Japan when the mountain region at the eastern end of the Eurasian continent is removed. For instance, the generation of PMCs over offshore west of Hokkaido decreases significantly when the mountain range is removed, whereas the generation of PMCs over the Strait of Tartary remains unchanged. According to a composite analysis, this result can be attributed to the different responses of subregional oceanic surface wind to the removal of the mountains. In the experiment without mountains, cold air outbreaks from the continent blow directly over the Sea of Japan causing strong westerly winds over the offshore west of Hokkaido. Consequently, PMCs tend to make landfall earlier and before reaching maturity. The uniformly distributed westerly wind also has a negative impact on PMC genesis because of weakened horizontal wind shear and meridional temperature gradient. By contrast, the low-level wind over the Strait of Tartary before PMC genesis is unaffected by the mountains, and thus, topographic effects are not required for PMC genesis in this region. These results indicate that the responses of PMCs to topographic forcing have a regional variability.

Recently, there have been two competing perspectives on the links of rapid sea ice retreat over the Barents–Kara Seas (BKS) and in midlatitude severe cold winters over Eurasia. By using the daily ECMWF reanalysis (ERA)-In-terim dataset during 1979–2016, we reconcile two contrasting viewpoints, namely, if an upward turbulent heat flux appears and maintains several days after the rapid sea ice loss over the BKS in winter, a dipole structure which consists of a primary positive center of action around the Barents Sea with the other opposite-sign center of action over Eurasian continent is easily amplified, and consequently a cold anomaly over Eurasia will occur, but not vice versa. Our work casts light on the links between the Arctic sea ice loss and Eurasian cold winter anomalies by revealing the different responses of the surface turbulent heat flux (STHF) after rapid sea ice retreat on a daily basis.

We report paleomagnetic data showing that an intraoceanic Trans-Tethyan subduction zone existed south of the Eurasian continent and north of the Indian subcontinent until at least Paleocene time. This system was active between 66 and 62 Ma at a paleolatitude of 8.1 ± 5.6 °N, placing it 600–2,300 km south of the contemporaneous Eurasian margin. The first ophiolite obductions onto the northern Indian margin also occurred at this time, demonstrating that collision was a multistage process involving at least two subduction systems. Collisional events began with collision of India and the Trans-Tethyan subduction zone in Late Cretaceous to Early Paleocene time, followed by the collision of India (plus Trans-Tethyan ophiolites) with Eurasia in mid-Eocene time. These data constrain the total postcollisional convergence across the India–Eurasia convergent zone to 1,350–2,150 km and limit the north–south extent of northwestern Greater India to

The recent increasing trend of “warm Arctic, cold continents” has attracted much attention, but it remains debatable as to what forces are behind this phenomenon. Here, we revisited surface temperature variability over the Arctic and the Eurasian continent by applying the self-organizing-map (SOM) technique to gridded daily surface temperature data. Nearly 40 % of the surface temperature trends are explained by the nine SOM patterns that depict the switch to the current warm Arctic–cold Eurasia pattern at the beginning of this century from the reversed pattern that dominated the 1980s and 1990s. Further, no cause–effect relationship is found between the Arctic sea ice loss and the cold spells in the high-latitude to midlatitude Eurasian continent suggested by earlier studies. Instead, the increasing trend in warm Arctic–cold Eurasia pattern appears to be related to the anomalous atmospheric circulations associated with two Rossby wave trains triggered by rising sea surface temperature (SST) over the central North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans. On interdecadal timescale, the recent increase in the occurrences of the warm Arctic–cold Eurasia pattern is a fragment of the interdecadal variability of SST over the Atlantic Ocean as represented by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and over the central Pacific Ocean.

Over the past three years, the European Union has adopted a number of decisions in the European defense sector. They are the most important decisions sixty years after the failure of the European Defense Community and this means that we are facing a structural change in this field. The European Commission’s decision to establish the new Defense and Space Directorate-General confirms that defense policy is by now an EU structural policy. The change of the American military strategy, with the shift of attention from European to Asian theater, as well as the progressive American disengagement from the Middle East and the questioning of the role of NATO, are all signs of a progressive weakening of the role of the USA in the world and explain European defense policy activism. The coming to an end of three treaties for the reduction of conventional and nuclear weapons on European territory, are also contributing to this change of European attitude toward defence matter. This paper analyzes a possible way out of a new arms race on the European continent, taking up the proposals of Gorbachev and Mitterrand for a “Common European home” which, by strengthening the role of the Council of Europe and the OSCE, include Russia and the United States itself. It also resumes the indications of Altiero Spinelli concerning the conditions necessary for the setting up of institutions that overcome traditional alliances in order to restore lasting peace, not only on the Eurasian continent, but also in the relations between the latter and the American continent.

The analysis of the activity of natural foci of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) in the Far Eastern Federal District (Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories, the Jewish Autonomous and Amur Regions), represented by a single Sikhote-Alin focal region was performed. Endemic territories of China, Korea, Japan are adjacent to this focal region. In the last decade the decrease of the infection rate in ixodid ticks and the morbidity of TBE compared to the 1990s was observed. Data on the infection rates in ixodid ticks based on ELISA, PCR and TBEV isolation are often discrepant. Active circulation of TBEV that involved dominant and less significant species of ixodid ticks and mouse-like rodents has been demonstrated since 1952 in China, since the 1990s in Japan and since 2011 in South Korea. The circulation of TBEV strains of the Far Eastern subtype was determined in all these territories. The exception was 7 strains isolated in South Korea, which appeared to be the European subtype based on the results of molecular genetic analysis. Two new strains of TBEV from the organs of wild rodents Marmota himalayana were isolated in 2017 in the territories of previously unknown natural foci in the Tien Shan, China. The genetic divergence of these strains from three TBEV subtypes allowed us to establish the existance of a new Himalayan TBEV subtype (Him-TBEV), which, according to the authors, has been "hidden" for hundreds of years. One can also speculate the processes of emergence of new TBEV subtypes The most complete picture of the Far Eastern population of TBEV was obtained in the last decade of the twentieth century, which served as the basis and impetus for the study and comparative analysis of the differences in numerous strains of TBEV isolated on the territory of the Eurasian continent.

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) over the Eurasian continent has significant effects on both regional and global climate. It can even affect the remote Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), as shown in this study. Through coupled modeling experiments, we demonstrate that removing the TP immediately weakens the meridional wind over East Asia, resulting in stronger westerlies in the midlatitudes. The stronger westerlies enhance the southward Ekman flow and surface latent and sensible heat losses in the subpolar North Atlantic, cooling the surface ocean and leading to stronger North Atlantic deep-water formation and stronger AMOC during the first few decades after the TP removal. At the same time, accompanying the weakened trade winds in the tropical Pacific, more moisture is transported from the tropical Pacific to the North Atlantic, freshening the surface ocean and triggering a weakening of the AMOC. The AMOC weakening in turn results in southward expansion and melting of sea ice, providing more freshwater to the North Atlantic, which furthers the weakening of the AMOC. The positive feedback between the AMOC and sea ice eventually leads to AMOC shutdown. We illustrate that there would be no AMOC without the TP. These results call for a revisiting of how ocean circulation and global climate may have responded to the TP uplift and other tectonic changes on the geological time scale.

The distinctive monsoon climate over East Asia, which is affected by the vast Eurasian continent and Pacific Ocean basin and the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau, provides arguably the best testbed for evaluating the competence of Earth system climate models. Here, a set of diagnostic metrics, consisting of 14 items and 7 variables, is specifically developed. This physically intuitive set of metrics focuses on the essential features of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM), and includes fields that depict the climatology, the major modes of variability, and unique characteristics of the EASM. The metrics are applied to multimodel historical simulations derived from 20 models that participated in phases 3 and 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3 and CMIP5, respectively), along with the newly developed Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology Earth System Model, version 3. The CMIP5 models show significant improvements over the CMIP3 models in terms of the simulated East Asian monsoon circulation systems on a regional scale, major modes of EAWM variability, the monsoon domain and precipitation intensity, and teleconnection associated with the heat source over the Philippine Sea. Clear deficiencies persist from CMIP3 to CMIP5 with respect to capturing the major modes of EASM variability, as well as the relationship between the EASM and ENSO during El Niño developing and decay phases. The possible origins that affect models’ performance are also discussed. The metrics provide a tool for evaluating the performance of Earth system climate models, and facilitating the assessment of past and projected future changes of the East Asian monsoon.

Тюркский мир на протяжении длительной истории являлась уникальным местом, где зарождались и развивались мощнейшие культуры и цивилизации, оказавшее огромное влияние и воздействие на ход, и развитие мировой истории, культуры и цивилизации. Его влияние было обусловлено тем, что Тюркский мир, будучи географически расположенный в центральной части евразийского континента, всегда был связующим мостом между двумя великими культурами Востока и Запада.

The work is a continuation of the article published in the journal Vestnik Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk (2019, No. 7) in which a review of tools for quantifying the effects of trade wars was given. This article presents the results of calculations of the consequences of several scenarios of the trade war of the United States and its European allies against Russia and China. These results were obtained using a software package that considers more than 100 countries of the world, and the subjects of each of the countries interact with each other through trade and financial relations. The complex includes a simulator of socio-economic dynamics, built by experts from China. It acts as an external contour for a number of models of the socio-economic system of the Eurasian continent developed at the RAS Central Economics and Mathematics Institute in 2016–2018. The calculated scenarios envisage an increase in import duties on all goods from China and Russia delivered to the United States and EU countries, as well as symmetrical responses. A separate consideration is the imitation of restrictive measures in relation to all Russian export goods. It also analyzes trade relations between Russia and the rest of the world and examines the benefits of an agent-based approach for modeling socio-economic systems.

—Tidal ocean corrections for gravity observation play an important part in monitoring studies. Tidal ocean models were tested by Transcontinental Tidal Gravity Profile (TTGP) results. This part of the global tidal network was used for study the influence of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans up to coastline. Our tidal result agrees with static theory and had a weak ocean dynamic influence (Schiwiderski and other models) into the center of the Eurasian continent. Near the coast, where ocean effects were strong, the influence increases. In the East part of TTGP, we obtained observation results for Khabarovsk region, for Sakhalin Island and for Primorye region (Sea of Okhotsk and Sea of Japan). In the South part of the Primorye observation (Russian Far East) long-term measurement was completed at the Posyet Bay level station and Cape Shultz gravity station. Based on the results, a selection of ocean tidal models was made and a number of unresolved issues were determined.