ИСТИНА

Chukotka peninsula, the north-eastern edge of Eurasia, is located between vast water masses of the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. Due to Siberian High the cold continental air from the mainland areas of Yakutia comes to Chukotka, therefore, the impact of a warming from Pacific Ocean here is not so great, and manifests itself in the narrow coastal strip. However the climate of this region started to change to the warming. We analyzed trends of air temperature (mean annual Tyear and summer Tsum) and precipitation annual sum ( Pyear) and for the cold period (Psolid) for the~ 50 years. Trends Tyear and Tsum for entire Chukotka Peninsula in the past, to be precise, 46 years (1966-2012) are positive and range from 1 to 2°C / 46 years on the coast of the peninsula to inland. Trends of the Pyear and Psolid are similar in that ther are negative in coastal regions, and positive in continental ones between the Cross Gulf and Anandyr Estuary. The aim of this work is also to assess the current state of the highlands’ glaciation by the high resolution satellite images, to compare with the Glacier inventory data at the background of climatic parameters, such as temperature and precipitation trends over the last 50 years, as well as assessment of the evolution of glacier systems in the near future. Among the regional socio-economic drivers of region is population growth rate. Population in Chukotka rose steeply with in-migration during the late Soviet period, and then fell even more rapidly after 1990 with the fall of the Soviet Union and withdrawal of central government financial support for regional economic activities. Accessible demographic predictions for the Chukotka region are available only to 2030. The main demographic indices for the period up to 2030, which indicates that total fertility rate will slightly rise from 1.9 to 2‰ and life expectancy will reach to 67.5 years from the current level of 61 years. These tendencies will limit rate of population decline to 0.5-1% per year after 2030.