The role of arctic and boreal area is crucial in understanding rapidly changing global climate. The climate change itself has an enhanced effect in arctic and boreal areas. On the other hand, several feedback loops and mechanisms could either enhance or decelerate climate change. Besides these interlinks, the territory has enormous natural resources and the way they are utilised in future gives us a direction how to meet global grand challenges and regional impacts. Regionally, effective early warning systems and comprehensive monitoring
will guide in reducing emissions in practise and save natural resources. Here we give insight
into these issues, introduce the SMEAR (Station for Measuring Ecosystem-Atmosphere Relations) concept applicable to the PEEX network, and give a roadmap from deep understanding to practical solutions.

The paper describes the study of wind-wave regime at the Gorky reservoir. A series of field experiments (carried out from May to October in 2012–2015) showed that the values of the drag coefficient CD for a middle-sized reservoir in the range of moderate and strong winds are approximately 50 % lower than its values typical of the ocean conditions. The obtained parameterization of CD was implemented in the wave model WAVEWATCH III to receive the correct wave forecasts for a middle-sized reservoir. Statistical distribution of the wind speeds and directions called for consideration of wind field heterogeneity over the Gorky reservoir. It was incorporated using the wind forcing from atmospheric model WRF to WAVEWATCH III. Homogeneous wind forcing from the experimental data was compared with heterogeneous wind forcing from WRF. The need for further improvement of the quality of wind and wave prediction is discussed.

The paper discusses an approach to a long-term forecast of river runoff changes for Russian large river basins in the first third of the XXI century caused by climate warming and social-economic changes. The approach considers runoff changes under a range of possible climate warming effects. This range is chosen by generalizing the calculation results obtained by using an ensemble of global climate models within CMIP 3 and CMIP 5 experiments for two
contrasting scenarios (A2/RCP 8.5 and B1/RCP 2.6) of globally averaged air temperature rises. The approach also utilizes a method for alternative scenario for water consumption related to socio-economic changes. The obtained scenario estimates show that expected changes in the Volga and Don annual river runoff and its intra-annual distribution in the first third of this century can be relatively small, while changes in water use characteristics may be extremely negative in some scenarios, especially in the Don River basin.

The year-round measurement data of water temperature and dissolved oxygen content in a small boreal Lake Vendyurskoe in 2007–2013 were used to explore the hydrophysical prerequisits of anoxia and accumulation and emission of greenhouse gases. Typically, anoxia appears in the bottom layers of lakes in mid-winter and during the summer  stagnation. The thickness of the benthic anaerobic zone (dissolved oxygen concentration <2 mg·l–1) reached one meter in the end of the winter and at the peak of the summer stratification, except for the extremely hot summer of 2010, when it reached five meters. Synoptic conditions had a crucial influence on the formation and destruction of the benthic anaerobic zones in summer. The most favorable oxygen dynamics was observed during the cold summers of 2008, 2009, and 2012, when the repeated full mixings of the water column occurred under conditions of the cyclonic weather. In the winter periods, the early dates of ice season resulted in the most pronounced deficiency of oxygen.

During last decades, a special attention has been paid to methane emission from lakes [Bastviken et al., 2004; Wik et al., 2016 and etc.] as one of the significant sources of this important greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. However, attempts to simulate methane production and efflux at the air-water interface are scarce [Stepanenko et al., 2011; Tan et al., 2015a; Tan et al., 2015b] and models proposed so far need further validation using observation datasets. In this study, we use the 1D + numerical model LAKE [Stepanenko et al., 2011; Stepanenko et al., 2016]. The LAKE model was applied to a small subarctic lake in the Seida study site (Komi Republic, Russia) for identification of the key factors influencing the surface CH4flux and its concentration in the lake. We carried out a calibration of biogeochemical constants involving qualitative considerations of the character of biogeochemical and physical processes occurring in the lake and aiming at a satisfactory agreement with observations, performed by the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) [Lind et al., 2009; Marushchak et al., 2016]. Comparing our model calibration results to earlier studies suggest that the crucial parameter of the model – methane production rate constant (Pnew, 0) – has similar values for lakes of different types in high latitudes.

The international Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX) program addresses the full spectrum of problems related to climate change in Eurasian Northern latitudes. All PEEX activities rely on the bulk of high-quality observational data provided by the ground and marine stations, remote sensing and satellite tools. So far, no coordinated station network has ever existed in Eurasia, moreover, the current scope of relevant research remains largely unknown as no prior assessment has been done to date. This paper makes the first attempt to overview the existing ground station pool in the Arctic-Boreal region with the focus on Russia. The  geographical, climatic and ecosystem representativeness of the current stations is discussed, the gaps are identified and tentative station network developments are proposed.