Environment in Russia?

The geography of Russia entails the physical and human geography of Russia, a country extending over much of northern Eurasia. Comprising much of eastern Europe and northern Asia, it is the world's largest country in total area.

Due to its size, Russia displays both monotony and diversity. As with its topography, its climates, vegetation, and soils span vast distances.

From north to south the East European Plain is clad sequentially in tundra, coniferous forest (taiga), mixed and broad-leaf forests, grassland (steppe), and semi-desert (fringing the Caspian Sea) as the changes in vegetation reflect the changes in climate. Siberia supports a similar sequence but is taiga.

Norwegian environment?

Norway is one of the world's most northerly countries, and one of Europe's most mountainous countries with large areas dominated by the Scandinavian Mountains; average elevation is 460 m and 32% of the mainland is located above the tree line.

Virtually the entire country was covered with a thick ice sheet during the last ice age, as well as in many earlier ice ages. The movement of the ice carved out deep valleys, and when the ice melted, the sea filled many of these valleys, creating Norway's famous fjords.

The land is still rebounding from the enormous weight of the ice (isostatic rebound), "growing out of the sea" with several mm a year, especially the eastern part of the country and the inner part of the long fjords, where the ice cover was thickest. This is a slow process, and for thousands of years following the end of the ice age, the sea covered substantial areas of what is today dry land.

More information?

- Wikipedia: Barents Region
- The Norwegian Barents Secretariat
- Barentsinfo.org: Your window to the Barents Region
- Barentswatch Atlas: A set of maps and graphics
- Bellona: About the environment
- Statoil: Environmental work in north-west Russia
- Murmansk weather forecast in Norwegian
- Murmansk weather forecast in English