The Kara Sea, washing on the northern coast of Russia, is located on the map between the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago and the islands of Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya. It is very cold, above zero the temperature of the water rises only where the great Siberian rivers flow into it. Almost all year it is covered with thick ice. The depth of the Kara Sea is shallow - mainly from thirty meters to a hundred, there are several places where a maximum of six hundred meters to the bottom. Its area is 880 square kilometers. The resources of the Kara Sea are huge.
The islands
Widely open to the basin of the oceanic Arctic, for the most part, the Kara Sea lies on the mainland, therefore it is characterized by many islands that are located along the coast. This is the marginal sea, the mainland. The coastline of the Kara Sea is cut by bays, into which rivers flow, bringing it up to a thousand square kilometers of fresh water per year. In addition to the usual saffron cod and saury, there are a lot of valuable fish here: nelma, muksun, and omul are found.
The islands of the Kara Sea are mostly small, and most of them are off the Asian coasts. The largest among them are Shokalsky, Bely, Dikson, Vilkitsky, Russian. And the largest archipelagos are Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee, the Arctic Institute, Sergei Kirov. There are few islands in the north sea, and they are small: Wiese, Ushakov, Schmidt. The Kara Sea is easy to spot on the map precisely because it is located between the islands.
Shore
It is almost constantly storming. Therefore, the coastline of the Kara Sea is so winding that it seems rugged. This is especially true of the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya - entirely fjords. And the mainland, too, seems to be bitten - its huge pieces are located under the water of the Ob and Baydaratskaya lips, thus forming the Yamal Peninsula. Further large bays - Yenisei, Pyasinsky, Gydansky. The entire coast of Novaya Zemlya is with hills and cliffs, the morphological nature of the coast changes from abrasive to accumulative and icy, and the mainland, on the contrary, is flat and low, the cliffs on the coast are only in places.
Climate
The Kara Sea basin is located in the Arctic, in its high latitudes, there are very close links between it and the Arctic basin, so the climate there is severe, as it should be in the marine and polar. Spread between the seas, Novaya Zemlya does not let warm air and currents from the Atlantic pass into the Kara Sea, so even the Barents Sea lying nearby is much warmer. The temperature of the Kara Sea is constantly close to freezing, it can snow here in any of the summer months.
In autumn and winter, it is here that the Siberian anticyclone forms, the north wind prevails, and most often a storm. The New Earth is almost constantly under hurricanes - this is the so-called Novaya Zemlya bora, each lasting from several hours to several days. Siberian rivers bring half of all the water flowing into the Arctic into the Kara Sea. Yenisei, Ob, Pyasina, Taz and Pur, plus many smaller rivers, affect the salinity of the Kara Sea, its temperature and other hydrological properties.
Sea water structure
Sea water is divided horizontally into three species. The uppermost waters are the Arctic surface, which occupy the largest area here, depending on how deep the Kara Sea is in this place and how much fresh water the rivers brought. Where shallow - up to two hundred meters, almost unsalted water can fill the sea almost to the bottom. The density is low due to the fact that the salinity of the Kara Sea falls due to the large influx of fresh water and ranges from five percent near the Gulf of Ob to thirty-five percent in the northern regions. Less salt - faster freezing. And the deeper - the saltier the water.
The second type of Kara water is the estuarine, which mixes with the salty and cold currents of the Arctic surface of the sea. It turns out water of elevated temperature and low density due to the lack of salt, which forms the top layer on more dense salt water. Then, the deep vertical currents gradually mix the layers, but the upper one still remains warmer and less salty. It should be noted that the characteristics of the Kara Sea in this regard change from year to year. The water temperature in July off the south coast can reach three degrees, and to the north under the ice it is close to freezing at any time of the year - minus one and a half degrees.
Bottom of the Kara Sea
The bottom relief is relatively even only in the central areas, mainly the depth of the Kara Sea fluctuates sharply. In the south and in the eastern part, closer to the mainland, there are numerous pits and uplifts of the bottom to different heights. To the north of the mainland extend the slopes of the Central Kars Upland, which divide two troughs: the western one - St. Anne and the eastern one - Voronin's trough. Here is the most deep. And another depression (up to five hundred meters) is located near the New Earth - Novaya Zemlya.
Currents
Since the density of water is very different and at a depth it grows spasmodically, flows arise between the layers that try to achieve uniformity. Permanent storms also help this process: in the center of the sea and in the west, the layers mix up to a horizontal of ten to fifteen meters, but in shallow water, between the confluents of the Ob and Yenisei, because of desalination, the layers are weakly combined - only five meters. The Kara Sea is rich in currents that go beyond its borders, but the most interesting ones that are locked in a circle only on the area of this sea.
Inside the currents are quite stable, they depend primarily on the circulation of neighboring seas with the Arctic basin. And, of course, runoff from large rivers supports this sustainability. The Kara Sea is completely covered by the ring of currents. In the west, water from the Barents Sea moves to Yamal through the southern straits of Novaya Zemlya, it is picked up by the rapids of the Ob-Yenisei current and moved to the north, then this mass of water branches, part returns to the south, again to Novaya Zemlya, the Kara Gate passes, merges with the first the course of the Barents Sea and - to the next round.
Iciness
In autumn and winter, the Kara Sea is completely covered with ice, and in summer only a small part is freed. In September, ice formation begins in the north, and by October already the south is covered with ice. From October to May, almost the entire sea is one ice kingdom. The ice is diverse in appearance and age. Fast ice is required at the shores. In the northeast there is a continuous strip of still ice, from Bely Island to the Nordenscheld archipelago and the Severnaya Zemlya.
In the southwest, landfast ice does not occupy large areas. To the south of the stationary ice there are zones of pure water or young ice. Here the Yamal and Amderma polynyas are located, and in the center of the sea - the Ob-Yenisei polynya. This does not mean that there is no ice. He is drifting. The maximum thickness of about two meters is thin, very young. The Novaya Zemlya ice massif thaws in the summer on the spot. And in the northern regions of the sea, ice is unshakable. He is always there.
Arctic shelf
Now in all the seas adjacent to the Arctic Ocean, there are strong changes in ice cover. The Kara Sea is no exception. Russia has over seventy percent of the Arctic shelf that needs to be explored. There is a very extensive retreat of the ice edge from the coast in the summer. Huge bodies of water that were motionless are freed. The climate is changing, warming is coming, and human activity in the Arctic will change with it. The characterization of the Kara Sea is also not a constant value, unfortunately.
Research
First of all, there are giant hydrocarbon deposits - Leningradskoye and Rusanovskoye - on the shelf of the central and western parts of the sea. So, soon there will be pipelines, towers and tankers. The Arctic ecosystem is not mid-latitude, where the consequences of any accidents are removed, although difficult. Here it is almost impossible.
It is planned to begin the development of deposits in ten years, but the dates may come much closer. Rosneft has already made a statement that the preparatory work on the pits will continue without the participation of the American company ExxonMobil, with which, before the sanctions, agreements were concluded for joint development of the fields. Will be investigated including the Kara Sea.
Ecological problems
Taking in the largest freshwater drains in the region, the sea is polluted by everything that forms on the vast territory of industrial Siberia. This means that all climatic troubles, all industrial accidents and even catastrophes, having passed through the water arteries, settle in the Arctic. And first of all, it falls into the Kara Sea. Environmental issues are just beginning. Heavy metal pollution with the waters of the Ob and Yenisei is growing every year.
Petroleum products
The Northern Sea Route, with its regular movement of heavy vessels, is especially bad for the situation. Petroleum products infected the entire vast area of their movement. But the fauna and flora that the Kara Sea has, environmental problems can destroy. Although the coastal zones are recognized as moderately polluted (measurements are constantly carried out near the villages of Amderma and Dikson), but a significant area given to maritime shipping is already stably contaminated. And it is not known what is more detrimental to the Kara Sea. Environmental problems are still poorly resolved.
Yenisei Father
The concentration of heavy metals in the mouths of the Ob and Yenisei increases both quantitatively and qualitatively. Copper, zinc, manganese, lead, tin, iron - this is not the whole list of what falls into the Kara Sea. The metallurgical industry of the city of Norilsk also brings environmental problems, and water contaminated with aerosol materials flows from here.
Around this city, all the rivers and lakes are thoroughly contaminated, even excessively, but, flowing from here to the Yenisei Gulf, the large river manages to clear itself in some miraculous way.
Radioactive waste
The above is not the main trouble that the Kara Sea suffers. Environmental concerns really began with radioactive contamination. Since the sixties of the twentieth century, numerous surface, air, underwater and underground nuclear explosions have been carried out on Novaya Zemlya. As a result, more than thirteen million curies of cesium-137 got into the atmosphere alone. How this affected the resources of the Kara Sea is imaginable.
Since about the same time, all kinds of radioactive waste have been buried in all the northern seas. The east shelf on Novaya Zemlya is the main place for this purpose: up to seventy percent of all active waste is flooded here at a depth of twelve to four hundred meters. Of particular danger are high-level nuclear submarine reactors with spent nuclear fuel.
Here lies the icebreaker "Lenin" and eleven thousand containers with dangerous cargo. Although regular control measurements do not show an excess of the level of radioactivity in all the bays of the Kara Sea, but potentially they cause death to all living things at great distances from the burial place.
Ice plow
For several decades, the two most powerful organizations of the USSR were emptied into the Kara Sea: civilian and naval atomic fleets. There, not only containers are buried, but also voluminous structures that cannot be disposed of. All this lies along the coast of the long-suffering New Earth. Everything is preserved as reliably as possible. No deviations from the radioactive background were found on and around the island. However, man has never been able to defeat the natural element.
Many burials were made in shallow water, and from time to time there occurs ice exacration - plowing, that is, the destruction of rocks by ice on the bed of the glacier. Through the examination, the glacier gains freedom and begins to move. Together with the products of destruction. How this happens: the formed not too thick ice from a strong storm breaks, stands on end in huge hummocks - endless fields of such huge teeth.
Then the storm calms briefly, and hummocks firmly freeze into huge masses of ice, similar to the incredible size of the plows. And again the storm. And again the progress. Standing blocks become sails and plow the bottom in shallow water to a depth of fifteen meters. And for pipelines that do not dive deeper than ten to twelve meters, this is dangerous. But if the containers with radioactive waste are so plowed, this is even more scary.