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The Siberian Curse

The Siberian Curse is the brutal, punishing winter cold that creeps across our northern continental interiors each year. Western Europe and the Nordic countries, steeped in tropical heat carried north from the Gulf Stream, are largely spared. But from Russia to Alaska, and tumbling south through Canada into the northern U.S. states, the Curse descends each winter. The name was popularized in a book by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy of the Brookings Institution,296 but the concept is as ancient as life itself. When it arrives, the birds depart, the ground cracks, frogs freeze solid in their mud beds. At the extreme end, if temperatures plunge to -40°F (or -40°C, the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales converge at this number) steel breaks, engines fail, and manual work becomes virtually impossible. Human enterprise grinds to a halt.

Regardless of country, all NORC northerners seem to hold something in common when it comes to this special temperature: “Minus forties,” as such days are known, are universally despised. The shutdown of activity it commands has been described to me by restaurateurs in Whitehorse, Cree trappers in Alberta, truck drivers in Russia, and retirees in Helsinki. And while they otherwise express varying opinions about the problems or benefits posed to them by climate change, the one sentiment they all seem to agree on is relief that “minus forties”are becoming increasingly rare.

The most crushing cold rolls each year through eastern Siberia. On a typical January day in the town of Verkhoyansk, temperatures average around -48°C (-54°F). That is far colder than the North Pole, even though Verkhoyansk lies fifteen hundred miles south of it. Such frigidity stirs up images of hardy Russians bundled in furs, trudging home with some fire-wood or vodka to beat back the elements. A less familiar image is Verkhoyansk in July, when average daytime temperatures soar to nearly +21°C (+70°F). Our same Russian friends now stroll in short-sleeved shirts and halter tops, licking delicious precast ice-cream cones that taste like pure vanilla cream.

“So . . . what are you doing this summer?” I am asked this question twenty or so times per year. Invariably—after responding I’m going to Siberia, or Iceland, or Alaska—I win a puzzled look, followed by a nodding smile and the advice to not forget my parka and snow boots. When I explain I’ll actually require sunscreen, DEET, and plenty of white T-shirts, I get another puzzled look.

In summer, even on the high Arctic tundra, there is muggy heat, hordes of buzzing insects, and water running everywhere. Yes, there are stunted trees, tundra mosses, and no raccoons, but these things are the result of cold winters, not summers. In summer the sun circles the sky day and night. Everything is bathed in heat and light. The ground thaws, flowers bloom, and rodents teem. While driving through Fairbanks, Alaska, I noticed people starting softball games at midnight. The place simply explodes with pent-up life in fantastic overdrive.

There is now overwhelming evidence that northern winters are becoming milder and growing seasons are getting longer. From weather station data, we know that air temperatures rose throughout the northern high latitudes during most of the last century, and especially after 1966. There was a short cooling snap lasting from about 1946 to 1965, but even then large areas of southern Canada and southern Eurasia continued to warm. After 1966, temperatures took off sharply, especially in the northern Eurasian and northwestern North American interiors, where annual air temperatures have been rising at least 1° to 2°C per decade on average. That’s about ten times faster than the global average, and it’s being driven almost completely by warmer springs and winters.297

The New Arrivals

As you might imagine, the biological response to this has been brisk. By the 1990s, a greening up of northern plant cover was spotted by satellites. Down on the ground, trees grew