The Kara Sea is roughly 1,450 km (900 mi) long and 970 km (600 mi) wide with an area of around 880,000 km2 (339,770 sq mi) and a mean depth of 110 metres (360 ft).
Its main ports areNovy Port andDikson and it is important as afishing ground although the sea is ice-bound for all but two months of the year. The Kara Sea contains theEast-Prinovozemelsky field (an extension of theWest Siberian Oil Basin), containing significant undevelopedpetroleum andnatural gas. In 2014, US government sanctions resulted inExxon having until 26 September to discontinue its operations in the Kara Sea.[2]
It is named after theKara river (flowing intoBaydaratskaya Bay), which is now relatively insignificant but which played an important role in the Russian conquest of northern Siberia.[3] The Kara river name is derived from aNenets word meaning 'hummocked ice'.[4]
On the East. Komsomolets Island from Cape Molotov to South Eastern Cape; thence to Cape Vorochilov,Oktiabrskaya Revolutziya Island to Cape Anuchin. Then to Cape Unslicht onBolshevik Island. Bolshevik Island to Cape Yevgenov. Thence to Cape Pronchisthehev on the main land (see Russian chart No. 1484 of the year 1935).
Water circulation patterns in the Kara Sea are complex. The Kara Sea tends to besea ice covered between September and May,[7] and between May and August heavily influenced byfreshwater run-off (roughly 1200 km3 yr−1[8]) from the Russian rivers (e.g.,Ob,Yenisei,Pyasina,Pur, andTaz). The Kara Sea is also affected by the water inflow from theBarents Sea, which brings 0.6Sv in August and 2.6Sv in December.[9] Theadvected water originates from theAtlantic, but it was cooled and mixed with freshwater in theBarents Sea before it reaches the Kara Sea.[7] Simulations with the Hamburg shelf ocean model (HAMSOM) suggest that no typical water current pattern consists in the Kara Sea throughout the year. Depending on the freshwater run-off, the dominant wind patterns, and thesea ice formation, the water currents change.[7]
Barents Sea is the fastest-warming part of the Arctic, and some assessments now treat Barents sea ice as a separate tipping point from the rest of the Arctic sea ice, suggesting that it could permanently disappear once the global warming exceeds 1.5 degrees.[10] This rapid warming also makes it easier to detect any potential connections between the state of sea ice and weather conditions elsewhere than in any other area. The first study proposing a connection between floating ice decline in the Barents Sea and the neighbouring Kara Sea and more intense winters in Europe was published in 2010,[11] and there has been extensive research into this subject since then. For instance, a 2019 paper holds BKS ice decline responsible for 44% of the 1995–2014 central Eurasian cooling trend, far more than indicated by the models,[12] while another study from that year suggests that the decline in BKS ice reduces snow cover in the North Eurasia but increases it in central Europe.[13] There are also potential links to summer precipitation:[14] a connection has been proposed between the reduced BKS ice extent in November–December and greater June rainfall overSouth China.[15] One paper even identified a connection between Kara Sea ice extent and the ice cover ofLake Qinghai on theTibetan Plateau.[16]
However, BKS ice research is often subject to the same uncertainty as the broader research into Arctic amplification/whole-Arctic sea ice loss and the jet stream, and is often challenged by the same data.[17] Nevertheless, the most recent research still finds connections which are statistically robust,[18] yet non-linear in nature: two separate studies published in 2021 indicate that while autumn BKS ice loss results in cooler Eurasian winters, ice loss during winter makes Eurasian winters warmer:[19] as BKS ice loss accelerates, the risk of more severe Eurasian winter extremes diminishes while heatwave risk in the spring and summer is magnified.[17][20]
The Kara Sea was formerly known asOceanus Scythicus orMare Glaciale and it appears with these names in 16th century maps. Since it is closed by ice most of the year it remained largely unexplored until the late nineteenth century.
In 1556Stephen Borough sailed in theSearchthrift to try to reach theOb River, but he was stopped by ice and fog at the entrance to the Kara Sea. Not until 1580 did another English expedition, underArthur Pet andCharles Jackman, attempt its passage. They too failed to penetrate it, andEngland lost interest in searching for theNortheast Passage.
In 1736–1737Russian AdmiralStepan Malygin undertook a voyage fromDolgy Island in theBarents Sea. The two ships in this early expedition were thePerviy, under Malygin's command and theVtoroy under Captain A. Skuratov. After entering the little-explored Kara Sea, they sailed to the mouth of theOb River. Malygin took careful observations of these hitherto almost unknown areas of the Russian Arctic coastline. With this knowledge he was able to draw the first somewhat accurate map of the Arctic shores between thePechora River and theOb River.
In 1878, Finnish explorerAdolf Erik Nordenskiöld on shipVega sailed across the Kara Sea fromGothenburg, along the coast of Siberia, and despite the ice packs, got to180° longitude by early September. Frozen in for the winter in theChukchi Sea, Nordenskiöld waited and bartered with the localChukchi people. The following July, the Vega was freed from the ice, and continued toYokohama, Japan. He became the first to force theNortheast Passage. During the same years,Christian Dahl explored the sailing conditions in the Kara Sea, and was instrumental in opening up a direct trade route from central Siberia to Western Europe.[21] The largest group of islands in the Kara Sea, theNordenskiöld Archipelago, has been named in his honour. The year 1912 was a tragic one for Russian explorers in the Kara Sea. In that fateful year unbroken consolidated ice blocked the way for theNorthern Sea Route and three expeditions that had to cross the Kara Sea became trapped and failed:Sedov's on vesselSt. Foka,Brusilov's on theSt. Anna, andRusanov's on theGercules. Georgy Sedov intended to reach Franz Josef Land on ship, leave a depot over there, and sledge to the pole. Due to the heavy ice the vessel could only reachNovaya Zemlya the first summer and wintered inFranz Josef Land. In February 1914 Sedov headed to theNorth Pole with two sailors and three sledges, but he fell ill and died onRudolf Island.Georgy Brusilov attempted to navigate theNortheast Passage, was trapped in the Kara Sea, and drifted northward for more than two years reaching latitude 83° 17' N. Thirteen men, headed byValerian Albanov, left the vessel and started across the ice toFranz Josef Land, but only Albanov and one sailor (Alexander Konrad) survived after a gruesome three-month ordeal. The survivors brought the ship log ofSt. Anna, the map of her drift, and daily meteorological records, but the destiny of those who stayed on board remains unknown. In the same year the expedition ofVladimir Rusanov was lost in the Kara Sea. The prolonged absence of those three expeditions stirred public attention, and a few small rescue expeditions were launched, includingJan Nagórski's five air flights over the sea and ice from the NW coast ofNovaya Zemlya.
After theRussian Revolution in 1917, the scale and scope of exploration of the Kara Sea increased greatly as part of the work of developing the Northern Sea Route. Polar stations, of which five already existed in 1917, increased in number, providing meteorologic, ice reconnaissance, and radio facilities. By 1932 there were 24 stations, by 1948 about 80, and by the 1970s more than 100. The use of icebreakers and, later, aircraft as platforms for scientific work were developed. In 1929 and 1930 theIcebreaker Sedov carried groups of scientists toSevernaya Zemlya, the last major piece of unsurveyed territory in the Soviet Arctic; the archipelago was completely mapped underGeorgy Ushakov between 1930 and 1932.
Particularly worth noting are three cruises of theIcebreakerSadko, which went farther north than most; in 1935 and 1936 the last unexplored areas in the northern Kara Sea were examined and the small and elusiveUshakov Island was discovered.
In the summer of 1942, GermanKriegsmarine warships and submarines entered the Kara Sea to destroy as many Russian vessels as possible. This naval campaign was named "Operation Wunderland". Its success was limited by the presence of ice floes, as well as bad weather and fog. These effectively protected the Soviet ships, preventing the damage that could have been inflicted on theSoviet fleet under fair weather conditions.
There is concern aboutradioactive contamination fromnuclear waste the formerSoviet Union dumped in the sea and the effect this will have on the marine environment. According to an official "White Paper" report compiled and released by the Russian government in March 1993, the Soviet Union dumped sixnuclear submarine reactors and tennuclear reactors into the Kara Sea between 1965 and 1988.[24] Solid high- and low-level wastes unloaded from Northern Fleet nuclear submarines during reactor refuelings were dumped in the Kara Sea, mainly in the shallow fjords of Novaya Zemlya, where the depths of the dumping sites range from 12 to 135 meters, and in the Novaya Zemlya Trough at depths of up to 380 meters. Liquid low-level wastes were released in the open Barents and Kara Seas. A subsequent appraisal by theInternational Atomic Energy Agency showed that releases are low and localized from the 16 naval reactors (reported by the IAEA as having come from seven submarines and theicebreakerLenin) which were dumped at five sites in the Kara Sea. Most of the dumped reactors had suffered an accident.[25]
TheSoviet submarine K-27 was scuttled in Stepovogo Bay with its two reactors filled with spent nuclear fuel.[26] At a seminar in February 2012 it was revealed that the reactors on board the submarine could re-achievecriticality and explode (a buildup of heat leading to a steam explosion vs. nuclear). The catalogue of waste dumped at sea by the Soviets, according to documents seen by Bellona, includes some 17,000 containers ofradioactive waste, 19 ships containing radioactive waste, 14 nuclear reactors, including five that still contain spent nuclear fuel; 735 other pieces of radioactively contaminated heavy machinery, and the K-27 nuclear submarine with its two reactors loaded with nuclear fuel.[27]
^Varshavsky, V. I.; Pospelov, D. A. (1998).Geograficheskie nazvaniya mira : toponimicheski slovar [Geographic names of the world] (in Russian). Moskvá: Russkie Slovari. p. 191.OCLC934009474.
^Vize, V.Yu. (1939).Karskoye more // Morya Sovetskoy Arktiki: Ocherki po istorii issledovaniya [Kara Sea // Seas of the Soviet Arctic: Essays on the history of research] (in Russian). Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo Glavsevmorputi. pp. 180–217.
^Schauer, Ursula; Loeng, Harald; Rudels, Bert; Ozhigin, Vladimir K; Dieck, Wolfgang (2002). "Atlantic Water flow through the Barents and Kara Seas".Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers.49 (12):2281–2298.Bibcode:2002DSRI...49.2281S.doi:10.1016/S0967-0637(02)00125-5.
