Winter Road in Sakha Republic and the Effects of Global Warming

Abstract

Many cars, buses and trucks are driven on frozen river and lake, named as “winter road”, in Sakha Republic. Sakha Republic is one of the regions where the remarkable climate change will occur by global warming, then the change of available duration of the winter road will become an important issue in the near future. This article introduces how design, management and usage of the winter road are done in Sakha Republic, based on the hearing surveys and the technical standard of the winter road issued by the Russian Federal Government. Then we analyzed the effects of global warming to available period of the winter road over the Lena River near Yakutsk.