КОНЦЕПЦИЯ ТРЕТЬЕГО ПОЛЮСА КАК СВЯЗУЮЩЕЕ ЗВЕНО В МЕЖДИСЦИПЛИНАРНЫХ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯХ АРКТИКИ И ВЫСОКОГОРИЙ

<jats:p>The Third Pole (TP) region includes high mountain regions of Asia, including the Tibetan Plateau, the Himalayas and their surrounding mountains, as well as the Pamir Plateau, Tien Shan Mountains and Altai Mountains. It contains glaciers with an area of more than 100.000 km2, containing the largest volume of ice outside the Arctic and the Antarctic. Since the mid-20th century, large glaciers of the Russian Altai have already lost up to 7% of their area, retreating to a distance of 400 to 2300 m. In the Mongolian Altai, the area of glaciers has correspondingly decreased by 44.7% from 1970 to 2008, and some small glaciers have completely melted. Based on the concept of the Third Pole, we propose conducting comparative interdisciplinary international studies of climate-related changes in the environment, biodiversity and land use systems in two bordering regions: the Mongolian Altai (Mongolia) and the Russian Altai (the Russian Federation).</jats:p>