The Siberian Research Center of Hydrometeorology in Novosibirsk has marked its 30th birthday. On the vast territory of this country the Federal Hydrometeorological Service has only two more centers of this caliber - in Moscow and in Vladivostok. The activities of the Siberian Center are examined by its staff member V. Barakhtin, Cand. Sc. (Geogr.).

The choice of Novosibirsk as the site for the Center was not accidental. By 1970 the city already possessed quite an impressive research base including a big computer center, a satellite data gathering station and a branch of the National Hydrometeocenter. And, most important of all, there were highly skilled scientific brains available. For example, the progress of digital weather forecast methods was promoted in a tangible way by the school of Academician Gury Marchuk, his pupil - later an Academician - Valentin Dymnikov and their coworkers. On the basis of mathematical modelling of the atmospheric processes they developed a 150-level model of weather forecasts, called REGION and now widely used on the supercomputer CREY.

Institute scientists have also prepared a Manual for weather forecasts for the region embracing the Urals and Siberia. This covers new methods of prediction of temperature, precipitation, frosts and snowstorms for a period from several hours to 5 days. And the resulting weather forecasts have proved to be more accurate than those prepared in Moscow or by methods used in other countries and proposed over the Internet.

The preparation of manuals on various, including hazardous weather phenomena and also on the paleo-, hydro- and agrometeorological regimes is yet another area of the Center activities. Such guidebooks offer invaluable assistance to specialists in various branches of industry, construction, transport and farming. These guides offer, for example, data on the conditions of snow cover in the mountains of Siberia, which determines the water content of the local rivers during summer navigation. The Institute's specialists have also compiled a cadaster of avalanches in the Altai Mountains and they are always invited to share their experience in the designing and building of bridges, water intakes and in the operation of various hydrotechnical installations in the Siberian region.

Under the guidance of a leading expert Dr. S. Koshinsky, Dr. Sc. (Geogr.) and winner of the Shokalsky Prize, experts have prepared multivolume monographs entitled Climate of Big Cities and Hazardous Weather Phenomena on the Territory of Siberia and Urals. Dr. Koshinsky and Ms pupils have developed new methods of calculation of climate parameters for building projects and prepared a guide on Siberia's wind energy resources.

For many years now Center specialists have been working on aviation meteorology. Its experts working together with their counterparts from the Siberian Scientific Research Institute of Aviation have carried out several unique flying experiments. One of them has made it possible to calculate the turbulence intensity in the lower 500-meter layer of the atmosphere, which is of great practical importance for commercial air traffic. They also carried out analysis of weather conditions attending incidents and air disasters in the former Soviet Union and a methodological guide for investigating such accidents has been published at the Institute.

Its laboratories are also studying the regime and quality of water in rivers of the Ob basin, in the Yenisei and in the local water reservoirs and lakes. Agrometeorologists are now working on new methods of boosting crop productivity of local farms. Years of research have made it possible to prepare 48 hour model forecasts of the general atmospheric pollution and the levels of individual pollutants. Appropriate recommendations are now available for the industries of the region which specify the permissible levels of industrial discharges into the atmosphere.

At the present time the Siberian Scientific Research Institute of Hydrometeorology is successfully cooperating with some of the leading research centers of Czechia, Bulgaria, China, Mongolia and Cuba.

Science in Siberia (Nauka v Sibiri), 2001

Prepared by Emma SOLOMATINA

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