Climate Change and the World’s “Sacred Sea”—Lake Baikal, Siberia

L Baikal in southeastern Siberia, the “Sacred Sea,” incites strong emotions and action in Russia. In March 2006, 5000 people in Irkutsk, Russia, protested the proposed construction of an oil pipeline scheduled to pass within 800 meters (m) of Lake Baikal’s shoreline, and, within days, President Putin announced the pipeline would be rerouted outside the lake’s watershed (Cullison 2007). In July 2007, environmental activists protested against the expansion of an uranium enrichment plant in Angarsk, Russia, located within the airshed of Lake Baikal; one protester was killed and several were seriously injured by young men allegedly hired by regional authorities who favor expansion of the plant (Cullison 2007). Russians are strongly attached emotionally to Lake Baikal, in part because it represents the natural unspoiled beauty of the Russian motherland. Indeed, this natural phenomenon was the birthplace of the Russian environmental movement in the mid-1960s (Weiner 1999), a movement that endures today. Lake Baikal is a treasure trove for biologists. In part because of its great antiquity (it is approximately 25 million years old) and its deep, oxygenated water, this lake harbors more species than any other lake in the world, and many of them are endemic (Martin 1994). More than half of the approximately 2500 animal species (Timoshkin 1995) and 30% of the 1000 plant species are endemic (Bondarenko et al. 2006a); 40% of the lake’s species are still undescribed (Timoshkin 1995). The presence of oxygen down to its deepest depths (1642 m), a trait shared with the ocean but unique among deep lakes (> 800 m), explains the presence of multicellular life and the evolution of an extensive, mostly endemic fauna in the lake’s profundal depths. For example, hydrothermal vent communities dependent on access to oxygen for chemoauto trophy occur on the lake floor (Crane et al. 1991). In recognition of its biodiversity and endemism, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) declared Lake Baikal a World Heritage site in 1996. The lake’s biotic richness is matched by physical distinctions: it is the largest lake in the world by depth and volume. Reaching oceanic depths, Lake Baikal holds 20% of Earth’s liquid freshwater (equivalent to all of the North American Great Lakes combined). Unfortunately, multiple and diverse anthropogenic stressors threaten this extraordinary lake, as the recent protests in Siberia illustrate. Among these stressors, climate change is arguably the most insidious because of its seemingly inexorable momentum and the many ways in which it can create synergisms with other anthropogenic stressors currently confronting the lake. In this article, we (a) describe contemporary climate change in the Lake Baikal region and future climate Climate Change and the World’s “Sacred Sea”—Lake Baikal, Siberia