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During the past several decades, the Earth system has changed significantly, especially across Northern Eurasia. Changes in the socioeconomic conditions of the larger countries in the region have also resulted in a variety of regional environmental changes that can have global consequences. The Northern Eurasia Future Initiative (NEFI) has been designed as an essential continuation of the Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI), which was launched in 2004. NEESPI sought to elucidate all aspects of ongoing environmental change, to inform societies and, thus, to better prepare societies for future developments. A key principle of NEFI is that these developments must now be secured through science-based strategies codesigned with regional decision-makers to lead their societies to prosperity in the face of environmental and institutional challenges. NEESPI scientific research, data, and models have created a solid knowledge base to support the NEFI program. This paper presents the NEFI research vision consensus based on that knowledge. It provides the reader with samples of recent accomplishments in regional studies and formulates new NEFI science questions. To address these questions, nine research foci are identified and their selections are briefly justified. These foci include warming of the Arctic; changing frequency, pattern, and intensity of extreme and inclement environmental conditions; retreat of the cryosphere; changes in terrestrial water cycles; changes in the biosphere; pressures on land use; changes in infrastructure; societal actions in response to environmental change; and quantification of Northern Eurasia's role in the global Earth system. Powerful feedbacks between the Earth and human systems in Northern Eurasia (e.g., mega-fires, droughts, depletion of the cryosphere essential for water supply, retreat of sea ice) result from past and current human activities (e.g., large-scale water withdrawals, land use, and governance change) and potentially restrict or provide new opportunities for future human activities. Therefore, we propose that integrated assessment models are needed as the final stage of global change assessment. The overarching goal of this NEFI modeling effort will enable evaluation

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Boreal forests constitute the world's largest terrestrial carbon pools. The main natural disturbance in these forests is wildfire, which modifies the carbon budget and atmosphere, directly and indirectly. Wildfire emissions in Russia contribute substantially to the global carbon cycle and have potentially important feedbacks to changing climate. Published estimates of carbon emissions from fires in Russian boreal forests vary greatly depending on the methods and data sets used. We examined various fire and vegetation products used to estimate wildfire emissions for Siberia. Large (up to fivefold) differences in annual and monthly area burned estimates for Siberia were found among four satellite-based fire data sets. Official Russian data were typically less than 10% of satellite estimates. Differences in the estimated proportion of annual burned area within each ecosystem were as much as 40% among five land-cover products. As a result, fuel consumption estimates would be expected to vary widely (3%–98%) depending on the specific vegetation mapping product used and as a function of weather conditions. Verification and validation of burned area and land-cover data sets along with the development of fuel maps and combustion models are essential for accurate Siberian wildfire emission estimates, which are central to balancing the carbon budget and assessing feedbacks to climate change.