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I believe it's possible you may have been taken in by a forged story. I attempted to do a little fact checking on the authorities mentioned in that article. It seems that, other than this Siberia story, very little can be found about either Sergie Kirpotin (Tomsk State University) or Judith Marquand (Oxford); I've listed my Google search methodology and base results below.

There are literally hundreds of sites with this article you sent me, in fact, I believe there's too many of them. Looks to me like some coordinated campaign to push this, in my opinion, fabricated story out with a wide distribution.

All of the sites had one basic characteristic in common - they were non- mainstream, non-traditional and very "fringe oriented" news sites. Although I'm using the term "news" here very loosely - propaganda distribution mechanisms is probably a better term.

At the end of this post you'll find a post from Jerry Pournelle's site. The author of that post also fact checked the article and reported that Judith Marquand is NOT on the faculty at Oxford University.

All of the searches below were done of English sites only as the exclusion of "Sibera" and "Sibera" (it was spelled incorrectly in several sites) did n't work on foreign sites with the same story.

Google Search Terms: "Sergei Kirpotin" "Tomsk State University" Yields 552 hits

Google Search Terms: Tomsk-State-University "Sergei Kirpotin " -siberia - sibera Yields 19 hits

Google Search Terms: "Judith Marquand" Oxford Yields 523 hits

Google Search Terms: Oxford "Judith Marquand" -siberia -sibera Yields 61 hits

Source: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/mail374.html

Subject: Siberia warming

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

the Siberia warming story piqued my interest, so I decided to dig out the source. The only thing I got (via scholar.google.com) is

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/abs_free.jsp?arNumber=1222889

Lapshina, E.D., Kirpotin, S.N.: "Natural dynamics of sub-arctic landscapes in the west siberian plain as indicator of global changes of climate". In: Science and Technology, 2003. Proceedings KORUS 2003. The 7th Korea-Russia International Symposium. Volume 4, 2003. pp. 39-45. ISBN: 89-7868-617-6.

Moreover (and the following has all been found on the web):

A Judith Marquand is listed as a member of the School of Geography, Oxford University, but she is not on the staff list of this school. There is someone of that name at the "Oxford Centre for the Environment, Ethics, and Society", which has a defunct homepage (www.mansfield.ox.ac.uk/ocees), and which seems to be based at the Mansfield College, Oxford. No trace of someone with that name on the academic staff list of this college, though.

ISI web of knowledge (portalt.wok.mimas.ac.uk/portal.cgi) lists exactly two publications of "J Marquand" in this area of research, namely

D. Banks, A. M. Adam, V. Bayliss, G. M. Hogg, W. Bleuten, M. Dees, O. V. Karnachuk, K. Le Blansch, J. Marquand: "Environmental Protection in the Tomsk Region of the Russian Federation: A Case Study", Environmental Management, Volume 26, Number 5, November 2000, p. 585.

and

, , , Volume 26, Number 1, July 2000, p. 35-46.

My guess is that the first paper is the abstract for the second one.

According to ISI, none of these papers has been cited by someone else.

In these papers, Marquand's address is given as Holymoor Consultancy, Derbyshire, (probably www.holymoor.co.uk). No sign of someone of that name at this consultancy service, neither in the staff list nor in the publication report.

Searching for Kirpotin looked dangerous, since I do not know what transliteration is used. The only thing I could dig out of ISI was

Kirpotin SN: "Life forms of organisms as patterns of organization and spatial ecological factors", Zhurnal Obshchei Biologii 66 (3): 239-250 May- June 2005,in Russian.

No citations either on ISI.

Best regards,

Joerg Fliege

Management Mathematics Research Group School of Mathematics The University of Birmingham Edgbaston, B15 2TT Birmingham U.K.

Thank you. The melting of a region of permafrost that has remained frozen for 11,000 years is an important matter, and one would expect to see it widely reported and investigated, with more references to the scientific literature. Which is not to say it is not real, but until I see something other than a report in New Scientist repeated by the Guardian, I do not think it worth a very great deal of attention. Which is not to say that a less partisan source will not be found; but until it is, I'm not revising my views on global warming.

Thanks again for digging into this for me.